During the late spring and summer months, many towns and villages host festivals to celebrate just about anything, it seems. These are...

After leaving Granada in the summer of 2023, we headed to Málaga for a day. Spain's Costa del Sol is a popular tourist destination and...

On our tour of Spain's Andalusia autonomous region, we visited Granada, a beautiful ancient city and home to one of the most famous...

In the summer of 2023, Jennifer's sister, Paula, visited with us and we decided to spend a few days in Andalusia, Spain. Andalusia is the...

Loulé is the most populous municipality ('concelho') in the Algarve and is located about 15km to the northwest of Faro (where the 'A' in...

Faro is the capital of the Algarve region, its southernmost and its biggest city, although second in population to Loulé. Faro's...

In May of 2023, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet up with three couples, friends from Austin, during a three-day trip to...

Ana, our lovely Portuguese language teacher, lives in Alte and talks fondly of her small village. It is nestled in the Algarve hills,...

Quarteira is our home town! Technically, we are outside the town's limits but the Vila Sol 'urban development' (urbanização) does have a...

The Sintra mountain range stretches from the town of Sintra to Cabo da Roca, the western-most point of continental Europe. Its highest...

Portimão, located on the River Arade estuary, is a port town and is relatively big for the Algarve. Known for its fishing and canning...

Albufeira is a charming old town whose name is derived from its Moorish name, al-Buħayra (the lagoon). It was once a Moorish stronghold...

Driving from Aveiro back to Cascais with our friends, Will and Heather, we took the easterly route via the ancient Roman city of Coimbra....

The seaside town of Aveiro, less than an hour's drive south of Porto, was an important producer of salt for centuries, and there are...

Nazaré is located on the western Atlantic coast, between Lisbon and Porto, about a 30-minute drive north from Òbidos. Most people have...

We stopped only briefly in Sines en route to Lisbon so really didn't get to know it at all well. The town has played an important...

We drove the 200km to Seville in March 2022 - a straight shot east on the A22 (Portugal) and A49 (Spain) - in a couple of hours, arriving...

Vilamoura is a modern, self-contained resort, adjacent to Quarteira/Vila Sol, that is quite different from most other Portuguese towns....

South across the Tejo river from Lisbon is the Setúbal peninsula. The Ponte 25 de Abril and Vasco da Gama bridges provide easy access to...

The Algarve's western and southern coasts offer spectacular cliffs and pristine sandy beaches (praias), so it is no surprise that...