We all had a great nights sleep and were up for breakfast at 8:30am. Of course the boys overslept and only woke up at 8:30am when we messaged them to say we were going for breakfast. They did get up in 5 minutes at least. The breakfast was a buffet with a really good array of breads, cold meat, cheese, scrambled egg, fresh fruit etc. I thought it was pretty good for the fact that it...

Yesterday (now day before yesterday when you read this!) we left home at just before 2pm for the airport and we arrived today at 3pm (Portuguese time which is 5pm SA time) at our first overnight stop in Portugal.  27 hours of traveling! No easy way to get to Portugal from South Africa unfortunately. We flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Frankfurt to Lisbon. While we were all on the first and third flights together,...

It is amazing how quickly a week goes when you're on holiday. Unfortunately yesterday was our last day in Vilamoura. 7/8 days of unchanged weather. Everyday was around 18-20 degrees C, light wind, clear skies except Thursday when wind blew a little harder. As the weather was identical, we decided to have at least one walk on the beach before we started to head home. Only Chloe, Helen and I went for the walk. The beach...

You might have wondered what happened to the blog but we basically did nothing 2 days ago and so there really wasn't anything to write about. We had thought about going to visit Faro (as it is the number 1 attraction in the Algarve) but we all didn't feel like doing anything in the end. The boys and I watched the first World Cup T20 semi-final and we did pretty much nothing else. Helen did go...

Helen went for a run down to Quarteira which is the next town east from Vilamoura. The two towns really blend into one. Quarteira though has a boardwalk along the beach and lots of people go walking along it in the morning (and Helen say's 'old' people). As she didn't want to run back, Stephen and I drove down and picked her up (it is about 4 kms from our house) and then we stopped at...

We decided to do some exploring of the area yesterday. During the last trip I had read about Alte (inland town north of Vilamoura) and in our latest guidebook addition it was listed as one of the Top 10 places to see in the Algarve. It is listed a typical and unspoilt village of the region. It is only about 30 kms north of Vilamoura but the road to get there is a small regional road...

It was Easter Sunday and we didn't have any intention of doing anything in the morning.  Chloe though had bemoaned the fact that she never got to hunt for Easter eggs anymore as she was deemed too old so when Helen and I went to the shops we bought some for her and I hid them on Sunday morning for her to find. She was delighted with the unexpected surprise. Helen went for a short run...

We really didn't do a lot yesterday but that is sometimes what makes a great holiday. Admittedly Helen might argue with that as she went for a 15km run in the morning down to the Marina and back again. By the time she got back the kids were just waking up. Chloe and Helen went shopping to there favourite mall - Algarve Mall - also happens to be the only one nearby. They managed to spend...

Yesterday was our first full day in Vilamoura which really does feel like our second home. While Portugal is a predominantly Catholic country, it doesn't seem to stop them from opening shops on Easter Friday (fortunately). We had no food in the house so I managed to find a store open at 8am to buy enough for our breakfast. The family were all up relatively early (given we have a bunch of teenagers in the house)...

We have quietly started another visit in Portugal.  I left on Sunday evening as I needed to be in London to work Monday-Thursday. The rest of the family flew out on Wednesday night. Unfortunately there are only a few connecting flights from London to Lisbon.  That meant that the family arrived at about 8am yesterday and had to spend the day at Heathrow until 3:30pm when our flight left for Lisbon. They at least did have...