Our remaining time in Lagos was more of the same – which is to say FANTASTIC! We went back to Pie for one more go at their fantastic savory pies and tried to explore every corner of the old town. We didn’t get back in the car until it was time to check out and head east to Tavira. Jill set about checking out of the hotel and I headed to the car park to pull the car around. A thing about boutique hotels in Europe that it took us a few tries to learn is that there’s really no such thing as automatically settling the bill on checkout. In the US, we are pretty much all accustomed to presenting a card to the hotel at checkin and any charges we wrack up go on that card when we check out. In Europe your room is charged to your card straight away when you check in, but you have to present your card again at checkout to settle food charges and incidentals. The good news is that the desk staff seem to understand that Americans really aren’t trying to skip out on the bill – we’re just generally clueless about how the rest of the world works – and have mastered the art of politely flagging us down to settle up as we drop our key card in the return bin and head for the exit.
With our Lagos Avenida Hotel bill successfully settled, we set off for Tavira which is the easternmost town of any size in the Algarve and only about 10 miles from the Spanish frontier. Tavira is only a little over an hour from Lagos by highway, but we followed coast roads for the first half of the trip – specifically so that we could do as our friendly acquaintances from lunch at Belo Cantinho had suggested and make a swing through Carvoiero on the way. We wound our way through the coastal towns of Portimão and Ferragudo to get to Carvoiero. Ferragudo is a stunning little town of 2,000 people with, due to it’s location at the mouth of the Arade River, a history as a sheltered anchorage for the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans as they were exploring/trading in the relatively close patch of the Atlantic just west of Gibraltar during their respective heydays.
When we got to Carvoeiro, Jill and I both were both a bit speechless. Carvoeiro is very pleasing to the eye. The majority of the town is shaped into the hills that ring a beautiful central square like a bowl.
That square opens onto a small postcard-worthy beach with rocky cliffs stretching both east and west from the beach. And at the top of the bowl there’s a boardwalk that stretches across the cliffs that run east of the town. The town felt very familiar as we walked it and it wasn’t until we’d walked the length of the boardwalk and were sitting at a cafe in the square sipping a cappuccino that we figured out why… Jill and I were lucky enough to be in Capri last year with the big Praisners and Capri is magical in its beauty (not to mention the GIANT lemons and gelato). We decided that Carvoeiro is like a mini-Capri. Not nearly as luxe as Capri, but every bit as beautiful and magical. We both immediately moved Carvoiero to the top of our move-to-Portugal fantasy draft board.
At this point the one thing we hadn’t encountered in Portugal yet was a full-sized grocery store. We’d seen corner food shops and fantastic daily community markets with amazing produce, fresh fish, artisanal cheese, and amazing bread, but nothing that would scratch the uniquely-American itch of needing a jar of peanut butter or frozen pizza PRONTO. That may sound a little trite and small minded, but one of the things that Jill and I learned when living in Costa Rica is that when you are having a crisis of confidence in a foreign land – tucking in to some familiar comfort food can be just what the doctor ordered. In Costa Rica, we made sure we always had Ritz Crackers in the pantry and a block of Kraft cheddar cheese in the fridge. We are not sure what the equivalent will turn out to be in Portugal, but we do know we are going to need to find it.
As we were wistfully leaving Carvoeiro to continue our trek to Tavira, on the road out of town the car in front of us stopped to allow oncoming traffic to pass before turning left into a car park. In the seconds while we were stopped behind that car, Jill exclaimed “GROCERY STORE! Follow that car!” Here again, the benefit of our well-defined driver and navigator roles shines through. While I am focused on maintaining speed, proper spacing, and lane position, Jill can safely assess any roadside attractions and re-direct us as she sees fit.
Following the car ahead of us, we turned into the car park of an Intermarché. I now know that Intermarché is a French chain of supermarkets, replete with all of the potential goodness that combination invokes.
Before we get to the inside of the Intermarché, it’s worth a laugh to describe the car park. At this particular Intermarché there was covered parking all along the perimeter of the car park and there was a central island that was home to what I can only describe as an outdoor “Washateria” with an overhead sailcloth canopy. I regret not taking a picture of that particular setup, but as best I can tell the concept is that you head to the grocery store with your laundry hamper. And you pop your laundry into one of the machines before you head in to do your shopping. I’m still not sure how the timing of it works because I think at some point one of your party would have to exit the Intermarché mid-shopping to move things from the washer to the dryer? But most of the machines seemed to be spinning, so who am I to judge?
When Jill and I walked into that Intermarché, we probably only made it 15 feet through the door looked at each other and both said something to the effect of “Well, we now know that no matter what else we find in Portugal, we can live in Carvoiero.” We proceeded to go aisle to aisle and we got more and more excited along the way. For example, while almost every full-sized American grocery store has some sort of faux bakery section that sells the requisite store-baked cakes, cupcakes, muffins, etc., Intermarché has a full-on French bakery in their stores and a separate patisserie next to the bakery that has all of the French classics. And, I’m not making this up… The cheese section was 50 feet long and had an overflow cooler for even more cheese! This is of note because Jill and I both LOVE the cheeses of the world. In fact, we proudly display a dish towel at home that says “F*ck I love cheese!”
Spoiler alert: We didn’t find anyplace else on our FIRST trip that rivaled everything we loved about Carvoeiro. It’s not giving any secrets away to say that Carvoeiro remained the leader in the clubhouse until we found our new home town (SMP).
After perusing every aisle of the Intermarché (and Jill buying 5 of her favorite Narta French deodorants) we piled back into the car and set back off for Tavira. In an odd way, falling in love with Carvoeiro (and accidentally finding the magical Intermarché) allowed us to enjoy the rest of the trip even more because from that point forward we were simultaneously taking in each new thing we discovered as tourists and also looking at those things from the other side as potential future American expats in Portugal.
Jill and Todd in Portugal 