Faro

After breakfast I checked out and caught a metro to Saldanha which was the closest station to the bus terminus. The bus to Faro crossed the Tejo on the 25th April bridge. There was a lot of construction around it, probably in preparation for Expo 98 to celebrate 500 years since Vasco da Gama arrived in India. The theme was The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future. Gil was the mascot. 

Most of my fellow passengers were Portuguese. The woman sitting next to me had a mobile phone, not so affordable in those days, so I supposed that her job required it. Football seemed to be a passion in this country. They played Dead Poets Society on the bus video. It was not as in your face as on Spanish buses. Since I knew the dialogue I listened to my radio with earphones at the same time. Gracias a la Vida, Chilean singer Violeta Parra's most famous song came on.

At the outskirts of Albufeira, where the north-south highway meets the coastal highway, passengers changed and the bus headed east towards Faro. It was a large city with high rises. The landscape and the brilliant sunshine reminded me of Andalucia in Spain. I got myself a room in a residencia and had a fast food lunch of a hamburger and a banana split in the shopping street. Menus in foreign languages were all over so Faro must be a tourist destination. A street vendor was offering fresh pipies with his cry todos vivos! Another was selling chestnuts.

I squirreled myself in my room for a siesta in the hot afternoon and emerged in the evening to walk around the harbour. The cool air was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of Lisboa. Families were strolling on the shopping street. Perhaps inspired by the street vendor, I found a restaurant serving tasty ameijoas (shellfish), figuring that they couldn't mess that up. I shouldn't have, but I had another ice cream afterwards. Back at the residencia, the attached Mexican restaurant was having a quiet night but there were still some customers.