While in Portugal I took the chance to spend some time at the most South Westerly point of Europe in the small town of Sagres. I was only there for the morning, and all I was carrying with me was a small day pack. Despite this, when getting off the bus I was pounced upon by a local guest house owner who attempted to try and convince me that I needed a ‘room’ to stay in. Despite my protests she insisted I must have that room! I protested some more and she insisted some more until that is mentioned the town of Lagos. At which she seem to take offence and turned on me…

“Lagos, you stay in Lagos?!? Go away, go back, go away….”

And with a motioning of the arms waving me away she wandered off. A few minutes later it became somewhat clearer why she took offence at the mention of Lagos. Sagres is the much poorer relative. While still not the peak tourist season Lagos was busy and full of people, locals and tourists. Sagres was different… A stange eiry ghost town feel existed. Run down for no reason… Maybe it gets busier later in the summer but in early July you could hear a pin drop and watch the tumbleweeds drift by.

However, the reason for going there wasn’t to visit the town but to stand on the most South Westerly tip of europe, visit the Fortaleza and to get some photos. Away from the town the scenery is stunning so have a look at some of the photos in the gallery on pages seven, and eight.

Take a look at the clouds drifting over the sea:

or the cannons ready to defend:

or just look out to sea standing beside the flag of Portugal:

For more on Sagres have a look at sagres.net. Despite the other world feel of the town the coastline is amazing and there’s always something nice about standing at the corner of a country.

So your in Southern Portugal and feel like taking a walk along the beach. Now from Sagres to Lagos most of the beaches are small bays, but thankfully waiting just the other side of Lagos just past the marina is a vast expanse of sand – The beach of Meia Praia. Popular with bathers, walkers and those out for a run.

Meia Priaia stretches for about 4km from Lagos to the town of Alvor (you can’t actually get to the town itsef due to an estuary that cuts the beach in half with noway across) so you can get a nice few hours walking, swimming and relaxing going from Lagos and back again.

The first part of the walk takes you past various resorts so watch out for the tourists playing in the water! Once you’ve past those your left with about 2km of beach to yourself except for the odd person fishing, those also taking a walk and the odd nudist lurking in the dunes towards the back of the beach. I say lurking as the dunes seem to mean that they have a beach towel laid out but rather than lie on it the prefered action seems to be to pace up and down besides it as though guarding something. Sit down and Relax!!

Once you’ve reached the estuary stopping you from reaching Alvor there are some fantastic views, and at low tide you can walk out onto the sand. Back towards Lagos is also an impessive sight too.

There are a number of photos taken along the beach in the Portugal Gallery and a couple in this posting. The first is a panoramic image taken looking back along the beach towards Lagos. The second is taken looking the other way with a yacht in the estuary with Alvor in the background.

Check out the map link associated with this post for a nice satellite view from the beach.

Over the past few weeks i’ve been in a sunny Portugal aka Europe’s Constructions Site (only joking, but I was thinking of starting a new gallery called “Crane’s of the Algarve”).

It’s just a holiday, but it has left me even more eager to get on the road again after spending a few days on a beach popular with backpackers. Just laying there listening to some of the travel stories….

I’ve started uploading some images to the Gallery and i’ll continue adding them over the next few days, and then feature a few of them on the front page with a bit of background on the image.

PhotoFriday is a weekly photo challenge, the idea being that you submit a photo for a particular theme. All fun, and you get to see a lot of decent photos.

I’ve entered a few over the past few weeks avaliable here

This weeks is for the theme ‘The Road’ and is a photo I took near the surfing town of Margaret River, in Western Australia. I’d been meaning to take a photo of this very Australian road sign for many months but never got round to it until coming across this one.

If you’re ever on the road between Uluru and Kata Tuja in the Northern Territory look out for the same sign that’s been ‘edited’ with an alpine bent…