december 19th and 20th

Left Lisbon at about 12:30 on Saturday, after a great stay in the apartment. Travelled across the long bridge to the north of Lisbon. I think it is the longest in Europe, certainly feels like it.

The whole route from Lisbon to the Algarve can be done on toll roads and we figured we'd give it a try. Going south there are no tolls on the bridge, you then hit the A12 which ran into the A2 where we picked up a ticket from the toll booth.

The road south was amazingly empty, I doubt we saw a 100 cars from lisbon to Lagos.

We stoppped near the end of the A2 at a road side pull over for a snack. I asked, in my terrible Portuguese for the lamb ribs. Thinking I was getting a piece of the cage she was pointing at, but no it was the whole cage, we all ate some and it was hard to finish. Still pretty good for a motorway stop.

The day was beautiful so Anwen and G had ice cream.

The total fee for the road down was 18.60 euro's. Not bad for the 240 km's.

Got down to ma and pa's in under three hours which wasn't bad.

I can't really relate this trip to the last time I was here, mainly because most of the infastructure wasn't here back in the late 80's. I remembered holes in roads and cops every where. Never saw either on the way down, what joy.

The weather has changed for the worse, with heavy rain and cold weather, no snow though which is nice, and there are loads of small coffee shops to keep warm in.

We plan to spend Monday driving around, maybe hit Lagos and do some christmas shopping.