Albufeira is located in the exact opposite direction of Lagos, which was our destination for the day, so of course we headed there. A small town, built for mass tourism and according to rumors in town everyone goes here to party. We had no plans to party at all, but it might be fun to check out another village before we check out of our apartment in Armação de Pêra and drive to Lagos.
Driving in Portugal is easy, sure, there is maybe a bit more traffic than back home in Sweden but not chaos like in some countries (cough, Albania, cough) and even though they have tolls everywhere, they are smooth and above all, there is plenty of free parking. Of course there are parking garages you can pay to park in but so far we have managed to avoid having to pay for a single parking space, we like that! But enough about them, how was Albufeira?
I probably would have loved them 20-25 years ago, English and Irish pubs everywhere. Sloppy but fast and cheap food. Everything seems to be built to handle the English hordes who do their best to dry Portugal out of beer. As a 40+ man, they are not interesting anymore but I got a really good breakfast at a cafe anyway. If you look away from the central party districts, the city was clean, nice and quite cozy to walk around in and what a beach it has, wow! Would I have managed to stay here longer than the few hours I was there? Doubtful, even though it was barely lunchtime you could see how the Guinness was flowing and as I said, I am too old to hang out with drunk tourists.
