Bom dia, fellow a.netters,

welcome to a short report about our family holiday to the Algarve last year, hope it brings a little sunshine into our current dull winter weather.

Introduction and Planning

Now with a child that has to go school one is quite limited when it comes to family holiday planning. I don't really want to go in the high summer season with its high prices and huge crowds of tourists everywhere. Fortunately there are other school holidays around the year, like the one-week autumn break at the end of October. Of course this time of the year a more southernly destination is preferred, so we decided to head to the Algarve in Southern Portugal, a region I always wanted to visit. Some options to Faro were available, by far the cheapest and with the best schedule was the Ryanair flight from FKB. But since this was the last flight of the season on this route we had to find an other option to return. Not that I mind, since flying the same way back is something I usually don't like   . After looking around a little I found a reasonable priced flight with TAP from FAO to FRA via LIS and booked that.

So in the end our route looked like this, three legs to go:


Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

Flight 1 (28.10.2012)
FKB-FAO (FR 5148)
Boeing 737-800 (EI-ENP)
Seat 27E
scheduled 12:30 – 14:20
actual 12:50 – 14:34
flight-time: 13:00 – 14:31 (2 hours 31 minutes)

My dad took us to the airport on this Sunday, where we arrived around 1 and a half hour before departure time. It was a complete mess in the check-in hall, oh dear, looks like we weren't the only ones to take advantage of this school holiday week   :



Well, what do you expect with three FR flights to popular holiday destinations departing within an hour. And since I couldn't convince my wife to travel only with carry-on this time we didn't have a choice than to join the long queue. Eventually we were also able to drop off our luggage and headed through security. This was surprisingly quick, despite all the families and only-once-in-a-year-flying tourists.

The inbound flight from FAO was delayed a few minutes, and even before it arrived boarding was called for our flight. As usual we had priority, so no need to play the crazy queuing game and we were out on the apron among the first passengers. My wife complained since we had to wait a few minutes there with a rather cold wind blowing, but I explained her that this is all part of the Ryanair experience. Our plane in the foreground, the one in the background was heading to one of the Canarias islands (oh my, 5 hours on board with FR, that would be too much even for me):



EI-ENP would take us down to FAO today, less than two years old, and fortunately a new registration for me:



We secured a three-seater for us, with me on the middle seat (No chance to get a window seat when my son flies with me   ).

“Now please take you seats as quickly as possible”:



With the late arrival of the plane and the slow boarding (flight was completely full) departure was about 20 minutes late. The captain was on the speakers with a cheerful welcome (“Hello boys and girls!”) and an apology for the delay. He told us that they had to struggle with strong headwinds on the way here. Take-off then from runway 03 after the landing of an Air Berlin 737:



This gave us a nice overview of the apron of FKB:



The flight itself was just your usual Ryanair flight with the on-board commercial and sales show. The crew however was rather friendly this time, three young males and a cute red-haired female. We bought us a pack of M&Ms (the chocolate stuff, not the miles) to have something to nibble during the flight. The route took us over the Vosges mountains in France with already some snow on it:



Even more snow over the Pyrenees mountains after crossing the whole of France on FL370:





Cruising over Spain then and a little later this airport came into view:



It was of course Madrid Barajas, the main airport of the Spanish capital:



Descending then towards FAO already over the sea with great views over the Spanish and then the Portuguese coastline:



The town of Faro:



Faro airport seen from downwind towards runway 10:



On short final:



And touching down after a flight time of two and a half hours. We parked on the apron next to a Primera bird from Denmark (OY-PSC):



Lufty was here as well with an A321 (D-AISD):



Deboarding in the sunshine, more than 20 degrees around here and a slight breeze, good enough to get you into the holiday mood:



But hey, let's not forget to get our luggage, it will arrive at “tapete 2”:



And indeed, our bags arrived rather quickly, just hurry up if you need a baggage cart, there might not be enough for everyone   :



Algarve holiday

Out of the airport we picked up our rental car (after declining all the offers for extra insurance, navigation-systems, dishwasher, and so on) and after about 45 minutes on the road we arrived in the small village of Pera, where we would stay for the next 5 days. We had booked an apartment in a holiday resort named “Villas Barrocal”:



One of our two bedrooms:



Quite a nice place to stay, comfortable, big and clean apartment with everything you need. And excellent value for money, especially in the off-season, we paid less then 30,- Euro per night. First thing I did was to go out to the pool bar and had one of these    :



The next days we explored the coast of the Algarve with its beautiful beaches and sometimes spectacular rock formations:







Interesting flora as well:



There was also time to do some cultural sightseeing, like the Moorish castle of Silves a little inland, quite an impressive building:



We were mostly lucky with the weather, just one day it was cloudy and raining a lot. So on this day we went to visit Faro. The cathedral was quite interesting:



Especially since you could climb up the bell-tower, from where you have really nice views over the city and can get pretty close to the bells (I don't want to be there at the full hour   ) :





There are also views like this, U2 on final for runway 28:



A quiet corner in the old town of Faro, count the cats:



You also have good views towards the airport:



A nice 757 from Icelandair departing, most likely back to Keflavik:



Fortunately the next day the weather had improved again. A must visit in this area is the Cabo de Sagres and the Cabo de São Vicente, two promontory points which together form the South-Western tip of mainland Europe. There is a big fortress from the 16th century there:





The lighthouse at the Cabo de São Vicente:



These birds have found a nice spot to enjoy the breeze from the sea:



The shoe rock:



In case you want to start swimming over the big pond you must have a bratwurst here before:



Yes, it's the last sausage before America! A couple of German expats had a good business idea here. And of course we had to try a wurst, it tasted great. Only the bread they served wasn't really up to German standards   . You even get a certificate if you eat there:



The west coast of the Algarve in general is much rougher then the South coast with the Atlantic waves hitting the shore with full force. But that means that there are some wonderful bays with nice beaches, far away from the tourist hot spots, only frequented by the surfer crowd and by some old hippies and new-age-people:





Just beautiful:



Our trusty little Peugeot 208:



The five days of holiday were over way too fast. One last moody picture of “our” village of Pera on our last evening there:



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