Portuguese Hills, Castles and Cathedrals - and PIRI PIRI !!

 We get up and head off from the hotel into Old Town Albufeira to grab a coffee and some breakfast. Glen spots an Irish bar that is selling breakfast which includes balck pudding and white pudding (blood and suet !) so we stop there for breakfast. Rhonda is hungry and orders cottage pie and gravy for breaky teehee - both meals are good. At breakfast Glen grabs the map and we look for villages and towns with castles up in the hills and we mark a couple down. We drive off away from the coast and soon we are going up into the mountains.

 Portugal is very lush and green and the roads are very narrow and windey. WE drive past lots of trees with fresh lemons growing and also lots of orange trees. We stop at the roadside and pick a lemon from a tree - wow the smell of citrus is amazing. The villages we drive through are very pretty, especialy the gardens - people keep immaculate gardens here and almost every garden has grape vines growing loaded with grapes.

 We head towards our target village called Salie. As we approach we can see the ruins of an old castle high on the hillside. We park up and have a wonder around the vilage and go up oto the old castle walls. The view of the valley and town below is awesome and the town is surrounded by lush green olive groves. We find a small bar and have a couple of icy cold beers - it is 27 degrees here today.

 WE head off again in the car towards a larger medeival hill town called Silves where there is another castle and an old cathedral according to our guide book. On the way we pul up and Glen picks a couple of oranges from a tree at the side of the road. We peel the orange and try the fruit - wowwzerrr - juicy and sweet - that is the best orange we have ever tasted and it tastes so much better cos we picked it. We cross a large bridge and Silves comes into sight. The castle in the middle of the town is massive. We drive straight to the town square and park then walk up to the castle. IT is very impressive and the castle walls tower 100ft in height. There is a giant statue of a medeival knight at the main entrance and Glen gets his pic there. We explore the castle then head down to the old cathedral.

 We have to pay 1 euro each to go into the cathedral but it is worth it to see the architecture of the interior. ITs a bit creepy in there as the floor is covered in tomb stones and all around the walls are numerous stone coffins housing the bodies of medeival royalty we are guessing. ITs oddly very cold in the cathedral as well but the building itself is amazing. We explore the cobbled steets a while then head back to the car. Our plan next is to drive to a tiny fishing village on the coast that someone told us about.

 It takes about 45mins to get to the coast and the village of Algoz. The village consists of a few dozen fishermans cottages along the clifftops and a lovely beach harbour set down below in a very deep gorge. There is a cafe at the top of the gorge so we park and walk up to the cafe where we enjoy a plate of Couvert (remember bread, olives, cheese etc). A fishing boat comes in while we are there and we are alarmed to see it race its engines and speed towards the beach. It hits the beach at full speed and slides up onto the sand. This is how they come in and once on the sand the fisherman uses a winch to haul the boat up away from the waves.

IT is now 7pm and we have had a full day. Our last stop is going to be in a town called Guia which is renowned for being the place where chicken piripiri was first made. Chicken piripiri is a spit roasted chicken covered in a hot spice and we are dying to try it. We have been told about the actual restaurant in the town which claims the first place to make it and we eventually find "Ramires" up a very narrow little street. We head inside and the smell is knockout. At the table we are immediatly served with couvert (you know what it is by now) and Glen orders a bottle of vinho verde (green wine). We order a ful chicken piripiri to share with a side of fries and a tomoato/onion salad. Glen is in love with the chicken as it is hot and spicy and falls off the bone mmmmmm. After dinner we head back to the hotel where we are going to have an early night as tomorrow we plan to drive across the border into Spain.