Wednesday April 23rd 2025.
Today we drove on some reasonable roads with good scenery, now very much back into a rural region with plantations of cork oaks in abundance.
We visited the town of Sines home to Vasco de Gama, it is a popular beach spot and the main fishing harbour of Alentejo region. Sines holds an important oil refinery and several petrochemical industries and there are huge pipelines taking the products to a refinery inland.
It is the birthplace of Vasco de Gama it has an active fishing fleet and harbour and a deep sea port.
For once there wasn’t a sign banning dogs from the beach, probably because it was on the edge of the harbour and not one of its famous beaches out of town, so Layla got to have her swim.
The town itself is perched high up above the sea and is quite a walk uphill by road or there are places with a series of steps, there was a lift contraption that either wasn’t working or was exclusively for the hotel at the top I’m not sure.
The town streets were narrow and where we walked not commercial, no tourist shops, the castle was closed in preparation for a large festival.
We found a small restaurant and sat outside for lunch.
We drove on from there to tonight’s stop which is best described by its owner Pedro as a unique environment to relax and enjoy your surroundings, it’s 2.5k from a lagoon and the beach. Pedro is very friendly and enjoys joining you for a chat. He has an eclectic mix of animals from ostriches, pot belly pigs, goats, chickens etc. He has bought up huge areas of the local forest and has great plans for the future development of the site giving every pitch plenty of space.
Every evening we get together as a foursome, exchange our daily experiences and then discuss the next nights venue, sometimes it takes a long time, needs lubrication and not everyone has the full stamina.
taraabit 