PORTUGAL: Lagos & Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park

CAUTION: This is a long post with (probably) too many photos. It begins with a short summary of our last few days in Spain.

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Wikipedia provides some sourced content. 
For more detail click Lagos

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EL ROMPIDO, HUELVA, SPAIN

El Rompido is only a few kilometres east of the PORTUGAL border. It's a fishing village out on a limb, 8km from the nearest town of Cartaya. We're staying 3 nights at a golfing resort here; this will be the end of the SPAIN leg of this adventure. It seemed to be the best accommodation for the area; it's the off-season, it's quiet, breakfast & dinner are included, costs are quite low. We have a very pleasant, several kilometre return walk (our daily 10,000 step goal) into town through an adjacent coastal wetland. 

It is one of the most tranquil and un-crowded spots on Huelva's Costa de la Luz, but it's primarily a golfing community. Not many other activities going on ... a nearby beach that needs to be water-taxied to, a few fishing charters, some shopping, several restaurants, nice but limited cycling/walking/hiking. 

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We crossed the open European border from SPAIN into PORTUGAL ...

MOROCCO: A Day Trip to Tangier

In less than 1 hour ... you can sail 18 kms across the Strait of Gibraltar ... from Tarifa, Spain to Tangier, Morocco ... between the continents of EUROPE and AFRICA.

And given the opportunity to ride on a camel next to the Atlantic Ocean ...  

Why Would You Not GO?

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Wikipedia site for Morocco

Land Bridge Between EUROPE & AFRICA - Tarifa

This is the southern-most town in mainland Europe. Tarifa (top of the photo) is a land bridge between the continents of, EUROPE and AFRICA and it divides the Mediterranean Sea (on the right)  from the Atlantic Ocean (on the left). 

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SPAIN & UK: To Estepona and Gibraltar Territory

 Eating  In SPAIN ... Is PLEASURE

foodie

noun

informal

noun: foodie; plural noun: foodies; noun: foody

a person with a particular interest in food; a gourmet

Follow our route by opening TRAVEL MAP 2016/2017 on the right sidebar ([view larger], zoom +/-, pan around). Click on any photo in this post and launch a slideshow gallery of all photos.

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Driving In SPAIN

We've driven about 1400 kms so far, and followed the Mediterranean coastline as closely as possible, from Barcelona to Estepona. The driving has included the areas' major highway, Autovia A7 (also called Autovia del Mediterraneo) and several secondary and municipal highways, through large, medium and small cities. In general, the road system is in excellant condition. The 300 kms or so that we drove between Roquetas de Mar and Estopona is a superbly built, newer highway corridor. We probably passed through 3 dozen tunnels (some were 2 kms or more in length). I would estimate that 65% of the vehicles on the road are small cars, 15% are large tractor trailer trucks (some trailer trains), 10% are medium sized trucks and the remaining 10% include all the rest; medium sized RV's (Class C & Motorhomes, 1 Unimog), vans, SUV's, motorcycles & scooters and a few full sized pick up trucks (I've seen 1 Ford F150 & 1 Nissan Tundra and a few Toyota Hilux's). The only North American built vehicles we've seen, have been Fords (cars, vans) and a single, older Jeep Wagoneer.

SPAIN For Dummies

We remembered the traffic from our previous trip to Europe when we visited France, Germany and Switzerland. On that trip our German friends chauffeured us around tiny, twisty narrow streets and at soaring highway speeds (reaching almost 200 km/hr on the Autobahn and sometimes with "NO HANDS/KNEES INSTEAD"). None of that for us country bumpkins, used to wide open spaces and poking along back country roads in LOAF - we would be prepared.

Calp and Roquetas de Mar

  Small Rocks In The Sea

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CALP, ALICANTE will just be an overnighter for us. We followed the N-340 secondary highway as much as possible today and the major highway AP-7 when we had to. It's approxiately, a 375+ km/4.5 hour trip. The secondary route follows the coastline more closely; it's a slower drive and much more picturesque. It can also be prone to closures and accidents and passing through the smaller cities and towns means encountering an endless string of round-abouts.  

Travel Tip: Any hotel in SPAIN, to score a room with a balcony at no extra charge, tell them you smoke.

Coast, Cobblestone & Castles - Altafullo, Tarragona and Peniscola

Following the Mediterranean Coast South ... first FIVE nights

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Our driver Daniel, from Welcome Pickups, shuttled us, at 9 am, from the Leonardo Hotel in downtown Barcelona to the Barcelona Airport. ... ' Driving in Barcelona is really best left to the locals '.  

Thoughts about the driving ...

This is our rental Renault with a side-swipped fender ... most rentals look something like this and have damage in several locations around all body panels. Compared to North America, most private vehicles in Spain, are quite small to medium in size. The city and urban streets are usually very narrow, parking everywhere is limited and at a premium. Quite tight, fast,  & skillful driving manoeuvers are mandatory, road & highway intersections are often hidden, turns can be greater than 90 degrees. There is limited incomprehensible International signage and all driving regulations seem to be negotiable. BUT, and most importantly, emergency, service and delivery people drive really BIG trucks very quickly. As a driver ... the good news is that all of this is quite challenging and also UNBELIEVABLY exciting! 

SPAIN: Four Days In Barcelona

 The Most Expensive City In SPAIN  

We had planned on Barcelona being a layover stop; just a place to reset our biological clocks.  

One of us is culturally challenged and neither of us is urban-travel trained. We just didn't anticipate discovering so much interesting stuff to do, nor did we expect, so many intellectually challenging encouters to unfold. We were overwhelmed and thorougly enjoyed ourselves for several days.  

Follow our route by opening TRAVEL MAP 2016/2017 on the right sidebar ([view larger], zoom +/-, pan around). Click on any photo in this post and launch a slideshow gallery of all photos.
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BATH, ONTARIO, CANADA

A few days before our departure. 

The view from an upper floor window in our rental apartment.

We were fortunate with our late Fall weather this year, coolish temperatures, but nothing too alarming! Some light snow today and the weather man is predicting 20 cm of fresh snow for our region of Ontario overnight and tomorrow ... it's time for us to 'get out of town'! 

TRAVEL SNAPSHOT: 215 Days In 2016

We began the year with our annual winter diving/snorkelling excursion to Cozumel MEXICO. In summer, we road tripped (16 plus weeks) from Ontario to the north and western regions of North America in both, CANADA and the USA. 

The map below is interactive; you can expand, zoom, pan and click  for additional detail.

BASECAMP 10.15.16 ... Itinerary for " Five New Countries & Two New Continents "

After much discussion, we've settled on a General Itinerary for the next adventure.

Unfortunately, we'll be short a team member this time. LOAF won't be joining us, but we will be travelling with Van Kiwi, a close cousin of his, when we're in New Zealand. We'll still be LOAFin Around though. I've created a new acronym to suit the title for our next travel map ...  

Life On A Fixed income " Around The World Part 1 "

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Helen wore her Travel Agent hat and spent many hours 'getting us the best deals in the best places ' ... she investigated countless international flight combinations and permutations, poured over maps in search of the best long and short term locations for all the activities we enjoy, scanned Google maps to verify the suitability of accommodation bookings, researched car and camper van rentals and in the end ... made all the final arrangements for us. 


Tip: ensure stressless travel arrangements ... there's that stemless wine glass again, photo lower left.