Here’s the thing: it was the best of trips and it was the worst of trips. Hence the delay in getting this postcard out.
The Good:
The weather was perfect by our standards. 22-25 every day. Thermometer left in the sun would get to 35-40. Almost always clear blue skies. No rain for the four weeks. Wonderful, helpful hosts (e-mail for their contact info), roomie upper floor of a house in the middle of an orange orchard with lemons (and later in the year, pomegranates). Wander out before breakfast and pick a few oranges to juice for breakfast, go our later for lemons for cocktails as the sun goes down over the swimming pool.
Fast internet connection, pool, fish tank with the food needed to feed them supplied, friendly dog, short walk to where the village's monthly flea market and soups and tapas festival take place. Lots of balconies, roof terrace, two bathrooms...perfect for us at this point in our lives. Not the near-random itinerant wandering-by-train trips we have done mostly in the past but perfect for now.
In 2018 (see the entry for that trip HERE) we had a few weeks in the same spot, really enjoyed ourselves. The only down side is that in October-November each day the weather gets a little cooler and a little cloudier. Not that it was ever unpleasant but the trend was a bit...almost depressing. Not really but kinda. We thought, rightly as it turned out, that it would work a bit better for us if we went in the spring, when the weather gets better every day but before it gets really hot.
Add Geri's son David for a week and the usual attractions of Olhao, the very nearby fishing town, the beaches on the barrier islands, great little restaurants and bars in an only recently ‘discovered’ bit of the Algarve (so recent that many don’t consider it a part thereof), meetings with some local union folks, the planned overnight trips to Sevilla and elsewhere in western Spain, other bits of Portugal…shoulda been great, right?
Wrong.
The Bad:
Geri’s back is always a problem after a long (the definition of which has been shrinking over time) flight. But until this trip it has bounced back after a day or two. Especially when, as we did this trip, we book her a business class seat.
This time it didn’t bounce back. I will spare you most of the details. A very painful time for her. We got to explore the Portuguese medical system a bit. We bought a wheelchair (our one souvenir of the trip) and Geri, though she made an extraordinary effort while David was with us, spent virtually the whole time after his departure at the house, leaving only for medical appointments and one lunch at a place only a few minutes drive away on our last full day there, just on principle but also in pain.
The wheelchair was even needed for short distances in the house is how bad it was. Host Martin built a quick and dirty wheelchair ramp so that Geri could more easily get onto her favourite of the five balconies, the one off the kitchen.
We regularly talked about coming home early but in the end Geri decided each time that being in a wheelchair and in pain in sunny, warm weather was better than doing the same at home in the cold. So we stayed. The back problem had an impact on some others of her medical conditions as well, just to add the misery.
Since we returned home Geri has been undergoing pretty intensive, almost daily, physiotherapy, been seeing her MD regularly and getting 2 massages a week so getting back to normal or close to it we hope. Not in the wheelchair as much. So bad days but the good days are more frequent and getting better.
On Balance:
I feel particularly bad for David, Stepson #1, as his week with us might have included more excitement than the day trip to Sevilla that we were able to fit in and much more of the local seafood. He travelled all the way from Radium Hot Springs to Olhao just to sit, read, and drink beer, get a bit of sun.
We wanted to do this trip as we REALLY enjoyed it all in the fall of 2018, had cancelled it in March of 2020 for the obvious reason and had been waiting for things to open up enough that we could relive a previous visit to the same house of a few years ago…so hard to say that we shouldn’t have gone.
But for the first time ever I think we can say that we didn’t really enjoy one of our long trips.
But of course nothing can stop me from taking hundreds of
photos in and around Quelfes, which you will find HERE and of Sevilla with David HERE.
