Tom's Place – a sort of blog by a British resident of Albufeira
Photos and words mainly on Albufeira and the Algarve, and more.
My mate Bob was out and about yesterday. Pictures show a long derelict building next to the parish church getting a ong needed makeover, the preparations for the Christmas ‘market’ in the square (the temporary ice rink will be next to it), the Christmas lights (much fewer than in previous years to reduce energy consumption and cost) and a few of the outdoor bars doing good business on what was a sunny afternoon after a very wet morning.
Managed to get a few pictures of the very ornate lights at the other end of town. Here though the street lighting and other lighting from commercial premises makes it difficult to find good angles. Managed to get the mouse working again, sort of. The insides were a bit mucky after two or three years use! A good clean out and it seems to be working so i could edit these a bit to remove orange glow!
So, here are a few pictures from the ‘new town’ end of Albufeira taken on the evening of 23rd December.
Below – Avenida dos Descobrimentos between bullring and strip – click to see larger size.
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A little more practice and I have managed to get a few better quality pictures of the lights at the old town end. Click below to view. The pictures were taken between 1845 and 1915hrs – note how quiet the streets are. Most of the big tourist restaurants and bars are closed, awaiting the hordes next week. I went to the small bar called the Cavern to meet with a few of the other old miseries that live here, drink Old Speckled Hen, watch football and darts on TV. What an exciting life!
I do have a problem though in that my optical mouse is faulty so I cannot use the photo editing facility as well as I might. I cannot ‘sweep’ to select across text and images. Some pictures do have some unwanted instrusions. I will buy a new mouse.
An article on the local council website informs that 17.9 million LED bulbs were required to construct the various displays. I wonder who counted?
Tomorrow I will be at the other end of town and wil try for some more of their decorations.
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Our local council have spent a fair amount of money of stringing Christmas lights along the main road across town, plus a few others and also around the old town square. A few small pictures below, some didn’t come out too well using small camera so will try again later this week using the other, larger one. Click a picture to see it larger
I digress slightly perhaps, but they do have lights in the window. This is the popular leather bag shop called Kitanda, just off the square and a place I know that of lot of you like to visit!
The last couple of weeks of the main summer holiday season are under way. Temperatures in the dayime are in the low 30’s C, the water is fairly warm and the sun is usually shining. Although I had no sooner opened my camera case yesterday afternoon when a large cloud blocked the sun for several minutes!
Albufeira is very busy still.
I took a walk along the two main beach areas and also into the old town (Centro Antigo) area. Here are some pictures of sun, sea and sand, also a few of the local cats who, on a hot afternoon, moved hardly so much as a whisker. I didn’t see most of the usual tribe up near the viewing platform, just two of them somewhere in the jungle having a squabble.
Just a selection of five from a couple of recent days out. More soon perhaps.
I didn’t think this was the 1311 to Soulac-sur-mer! Three carriages from the Orient Express are currently based in Bordeaux. For just €530, you can have a three hour train ride and a gourmet dinner in these restored 1920’s vehicles.
The roof of Bordeaux’s main station, the Gare St Jean, is being renovated. Any scaffolders among you will appreciate the complexity of this construction. It’s several hundred feet long (the length of a 15 car train), six platforms wide and I think is almost art!
In town on 2nd August was the cruise ship Sirena. Originally named Ocean Princess, this completely refurbished ship carries 700 passengers and 400 crew. It weighs just over 30,000 tons, is 181 metres long and reaches 42 metres above sea level. The Pont Chaban-Delmas has to be lifted to allow the ship and others like it to dock in the city centre.
Staying with the nautical theme, Bordeaux is the location of one of the massive World War 2 German U-Boat bases. Built between 1941 and 1943, this colossal structure resisted all attempts to destroy it by bombing. In one botched raid, several hundred local civilians were killed. Part of the building can be visited, free of charge, in the afternoons except Mondays. Some additional information at http://invisiblebordeaux.blogspot.fr/2011/12/la-base-sous-marine-ghostly-ww2-u-boat.html and as that article says, the coming redevelopment of the former docklands may see some changes, but no-one expects demolition to be one of them!
Finally, one for the ‘how the hell…’ department. These disused grain silos must be 30 or 40 metres tall, if not more. Did someone abseil down from the top to make their mark? How did they get up there in the first place? These are in the Bacalan area of the city, not far from the old docks.
I find myself unable to edit previous posts and importantly the status item at the top. Enquiries of WordPress and user forums have not found any answers. Suffice it
to say that I have now left Albufeira to the heat (mid 30’s C) and the hordes of tourists.
I shall be in Eastbourne (Sussex, England) for a few more days before setting off for my annual trip to the Bordeaux and Aquitaine region of France. It’s been good weather here today, 24C which is good for an English summer.
I have a few pictures to show from a trip today to Lewes Football Club, up here tomorrow.
Found this picture of the western end of Albufeira taken I know not when.
Finally a day with only a brief shower. I haven’t been to the Salgados lagoon area for a while, so it was on the bike for a couple of hours earlier. It was windy but otherwise a nice afternoon. The recent very wet weather has filled up the lagoon except that I think the sand bar might have been breached – basically the lagoon overflowed into the sea. It is filling up again but one area is still pretty lacking in water.
Here’s one picture I took – the wading birds are happy in the mud.
and here are the rest
Good job I walked when I did, it’s been battering down with rain since about 4 o’clock!
From Praia da Oura along the cliff to the other end of the beach in Albufeira itself.
Click below to see the pictures
A very pleasant sunny afternoon it was.
Edited Sunday 10th April. Somehow the pictures in the linked folder below deleted themselves. I have put them back.
I went to watch the football at Portimão on Wednesday afternoon and had time before my bus back home to take some pictures down at the waterfront.
A few pictures here.
Tom's Place - a sort of blog by a British resident of Albufeira 