Days 4 & 5 - Lagos, Portugal

We took an early afternoon bus to Lagos, a town on the southern coast of Portugal known for it’s beautiful beaches, amazing rock formations, and “spring break” feel. And yes, the city did have a very different aura than Lisbon or Sintra - it was quite a mix of ages and nationalities, and everyone was on vacation, wearing bathing suits, and friendly.

We made our way to our campground/refugee camp. It was basically a parking lot with an odd assortment of poor, traveling people (mostly backpackers like us), a grimy bathroom and a reception booth. Awesome! We hesitantly left our tent and locked up our bags, took our valuables, got dressed up and headed into the old part of the town. We got some drinks in a bar, met some Australian randos, switched to a bar with dancing, and did just that - danced. Then we made the trek to home sweet refugee camp.

Our second day in Lagos started off at the beach - yay. We found a nice spot in a cove surrounded by cool rock formations behind three funny tanning old ladies. We walked around the old part of the town for a bit, grabbed lunch, and headed across the drawbridge over to another beach. But there were crazy gale force winds forcing sand in our eyes, ears, hair and everywhere else you can imagine to the point where it started to hurt. We build a pretty sweet sand castle, and subsequently watched it get wrecked by some punk kid. We walked for a while along some beautiful cliffs, went into town for some delicious caipirinhas, and hit the hay.

Observations:

1. The water off the coast of Portugal is FREEZING! Why didn’t anyone tell us this?! Boo!

2. Diana and I used cafés very frequently for a number of reasons: to get Diana her two daily coffees (and subsequently subdue the intense headaches and general wrath that accompanies her coffee withdrawl), to use the bathroom, to escape the heat, to rest our weary legs, to play cards, and/or to chat. They were a pretty integral part of our trip.

3. If you’re ever looking for a spring break spot in Europe, look no further than Lagos. It’s full of expats who came to have some fun and never left. Very chill, young and beachy.