March 21
Yes, friends you heard correctly. The SUN IS SHINING!!! Even better is that it was shining most of yesterday and should be tomorrow as well. Three straight days. How exciting is that?!? Actually, as you can see from some of the pictures, it was a bit cloudy yesterday afternoon and actually rained but given that the day was 95% sunny and it only rained for about 30 seconds, we’re calling it a sunny day.
We started yesterday by taking the hotel shuttle to the city. We had a tour of Italica at noon, but we thought we could tour the Real Alcazar first. Unfortunately, the line was crazy long, so we just wandered around the streets for a while until our tour.
Italica is the first Roman city in Spain and is located about 15 minutes outside the city center. It was founded in 206BC and was the birthplace of Hadrian (as in Hadrian’s Wall). The ruins are very well preserved with many intact cobblestone walks and mosaic tile floors. There are also several original Carrera marble pillars. Since the Moors took much of the materials to build their homes, it’s amazing that any of it still exists.
They are still in the process of restoring some of the mosaic floors with a few more sections still to be completed. The first 3 levels of the amphitheater are still in relatively good shape as they had been buried in mud. It was the 3rd largest in the Roman Empire, holding over 25,000 people. That was in spite of the fact that there were never more than 10,000 residents in the city. Apparently, bigger was better and a sign of prestige for the city.
Once we got back to the city center, we went back to the Real Alcazar and found only a few people in line, so we got to tour the palace with relatively small crowds. There were several large school groups but considering how many people would have been there earlier in the day we were glad we waited until late in the afternoon.
The Real Alcazar is a palace originally built by the Moors but was taken over by Peter of Castille when the Christians regained the city in the late 15th century. It is one of the best examples of Mudejar (combination of Moorish and Christian) architecture in Spain. The walls are covered with Christian paintings and tapestries but the Moorish influence can be seen in the tiles and shapes of the doorways. The palace has been used as a set in several well-known productions including Lawrence of Arabia and, more recently Game of Thrones. (Which, by the way, also filmed in the Italica amphitheater.)
After touring the palace, we wandered around the old Jewish Quarter looking for late lunch/early dinner. We got back from our Italica tour around 2:30 and went straight to the palace so we hadn’t eaten lunch yet and were pretty hungry. Unfortunately, many places were closing as they stop serving lunch around 4pm and don’t open again for dinner until 8pm. We could get tapas, but we were too hungry for small plates. At 3-5 euros a pop, it could cost a fortune to get enough food to feel full. We ended up eating at Mr. Pizza which is a chain pizza and pasta place. Lynn’s pasta was pretty bad but the pizza, while certainly not great, was edible.
All in all, it was a pretty great day. Just seeing the sun for most of the day was a treat.
Today (Wednesday) was another beautiful day for our drive from Spain to the Hilton Resort in Vilamoura Portugal. According to what Peter read, Vilamoura is the largest resort area in Europe. The town isn’t that big but there are a ton of resorts. But there’s enough space between them that we don’t feel like the buildings are on top of each other. The Hilton resort is beautiful. We have a small, but nice one bedroom apartment with a king size bed. We’re very excited about that as most of our beds have been full size. Neither one of us is that big but we’re used to a queen bed so a full seems pretty small. We have a nice kitchen as well as a washer/dryer. Of course, it’s a euro style so there’s actually only one machine but it’s still better than nothing. Lynn has been doing laundry all afternoon and is just about done with the 3rd load.
There are several pools but being off-season only one of them is open. Peter went for a swim, but the water is super cold, so he didn’t stay too long. There is a spa area with several small pools, so we hung out there for a while this afternoon. We’re here until Monday so we’re looking forward to exploring the Algarve coast.
Tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day so we’re going to head to Lagos, a small town just west of here. We’ll let you know how it goes.