I Can’t Speak Portuguese.

Faro is full of life, sun, cafes galore, entertainment a plenty, and the vibe we get from locals is through the roof…..in summer. Right now, we are currently in the winter month. Yep, they only have on winter month. The sun was out all day and you could definitely feel the heat. There were a few cafes here and there that were open, but they were very scarce. Zero entertainment. Nada. And the locals all seemed to be in their winter funk and didn’t go out much. It was basically a ghost town which made it really eerie to walk around in.

It’s been a very relaxing, chill three days right next to the water which was really nice to get out of the hustle of Ireland. First day we went to the marina restaurant, ordered some lunch and some local beers called Super Bock which was only 1.80 euro. Win. We walked around a bit, got settled into our hostel, which was on Rua Infante Dom Henrique (that’s the name of the road, all the roads here have ridiculously long names), and watched some TV. They have a ridiculous amount of TV stations which have zero commercials, which was wonderful!

The Bone Chapel.

Our second day, we explored the city, went to the market, walked around the old walled city, hung out by the water some more. We went to the Chapel of Bones which was actually made out of human bones. It was very creepy. On top of all of the churches around town, storks made nests and a crap load of noises. Apparently Faro has over 250 species of birds. After our day, we went out for dinner to Restaurante Marisqueira Piteu. Graeme ordered a steak which he had to grill himself on a hot stone, and I got the grilled salmon. Faro is definitely a fishing town so I HAD to have fish. It was easily the best salmon I’ve ever had (sorry mom!)

Storks!

Today we went back to the market to buy a lunch for our picnic we were going to have in the local park. We bought ham, cheese, a package of 10 croissants, cinnamon buns, strawberries, 6 pack of chocolate bars, and a HUGE water for 9 euro. Everything tasted very good and we have the bars, croissants, water and cinnamon buns left over for breakfast tomorrow. So we got 2 meals for the cheap price of 1. There are a bunch of fliers at the reception stand at our hostel, so tonight we went out to a restaurant called Telepizza that was advertised. We got a medium pizza (4 pieces each) and 2 cokes for 7.50 euro. We’re finally learning how to travel cheaply.

cool architecture.

Since it’s their winter, everyone was dressed in boots, pants, and jackets. Like, winter jackets. Here we are in t-shirts and capris standing out like a sore thumb. We only noticed a couple other tourists. Some from France, England and a couple from Montreal. Other than that, it was all the locals. Since Faro is so tiny, it seemed everyone knew each other. It was pretty cool. Being the tourists that we are, I wanted to get a picture of me seeing how cold the water was. I walked down some steps to the water and all of a sudden, there I am flat on my ass, falling a few stairs down. It hurt, but it was mostly embarrassing. Accident number one of the trip…

We’ve decided to cross Faro off our list of places we could live. I would like to come back in the summer, just to see how awesome it would be. It’s totally a beach town.

Maybe next, NEXT summer.

- Carolyn