We had the chance to take a quick day trip to Portugal last week, believe it or not after living in Spain for 4 years we STILL hadn’t made it the few hour drive to Portugal!  We finally made the trip and while we had a nice time, I highly recommend you drive a bit further than Faro and spend time in Albuferia, there is a lot more to do there.

We started off right by the marina and proceeded to walk just about the entire old town, eating as we went.

The churches were beautiful. I was very upset that we tried to go to the Bone Chapel too late in the day and they had already closed. Also LOTS of storks roosting on the buildings. Baby storks everywhere! (And I’ll be using LOTS of collages today, I tried weeding my pictures down and I still had a million)

And I just LOVE the pyramid shaped roofs that a lot of the buildings have. That is a distinctive Portuguese style.

Lunch and some pretty trees… Omar had this calamari/prawn skewer, looked amazing!  I on the other hand need to stop being so adventurous when I eat in a foreign country. My entree tasted good but had some unidentifiable chunks of meat that did not look delicious. I *think* it was veal but my Portuguese is non-existent!  Our lunch spot was beautiful, the restaurant had a garden/patio in the back covered with a pergola. Very relaxing.

Taking the opportunity to get LOTS of photos on the steps to this church…

Oh my. The tile and stonework here was a-mazing! I took many many more photos of the ground than these. In the pedestrian shopping area each street had its own design. Beautiful. And this archway is into the ‘old town’ and was insane. I can’t even imagine building that.

Oh and this graffiti?  Loved it! These shots also show off the nature reserve in the background. It is a beautiful area where a river meets the sea. The sandy beach is actually on the other side of the reserve.

If you get the chance take one of the boat tours… You can kinda barely see the beach on this picture…

I thought this was very funny… This sign says “The Sea” in Portuguese but if you look at it in English it says Omar! Love it!

Some gelato to tide us over on the ride home…. The looooooong ride home. While we did have a great family day and enjoyed our walking and eating and photo taking there really isn’t a lot to do in Faro.  Head another 45 min west and go to some of the bigger resort towns (or even further and hit up Lisbon!) I was just happy to spend the day with the family and check another country off of my map!