Picture perfect birthday

The trip to Portugal was awesome. I am truly lucky to be married to someone who is a frustrated travel agent. And the great thing is it was cheap. Roundtrip airfare, a week at a hotel including breakfast, and transfer service from the airport to our hotel (an hour's ride): $750 for both of us. Not bad.

I'll show photo highlights from each day.

We stayed in the Algarve--the southern coast of Portugal--in a small town called Lagos. We flew in to Faro (direct flight from Belfast, 2 hours, 45 minutes), then headed west. If you stay near Faro, you are in very large, heavily touristed areas (think lager louts and hen parties--we saw two). If you head west, you give up acres of shopping and restaurants, and you get this:

That was a five-minute walk from the villa where we stayed (villa = 12 rooms in a two-story stuccoed building surrounding a courtyard with a pool). Another 10 minutes and you see this:

If you take the stairs on the left, you can hop in a motor boat for a tour of the cliffs. Here's the fort which protects the harbour at Lagos:

Here's David walking into the maze of old Lagos:

There is tile everywhere in Portugal. Here's one of many tiled facades:

![](

We happened upon a bake sale. Multiply this woman's stall by about 25 and you can see our dilemma.

Tomorrow I'll include photos from our kayak trip along the cliffs!
4/27