That Wasn't There Last Time We Looked!
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 9 ~ 23 May ~ Alqueva Lake
Today will be our last full day on the lake, so we're heading back to Amieira; but we're not going to stop at the marina, we'll carry on past it and moor up on the other side of town.
Hmm... This pontoon has definitely seen better days.
If the damage is due to the massive numbers of visitors, they are clearly somewhere else today.
To the beach.
Presumably the place must be much busier at weekends, if it's worth employing someone to keep the beach clean. And while Amieira isn't as empty as some places we've been, it's not the most crowded either. (That distinction probably goes to Monsaraz.)
Water bottles on walls. We've seen this before though hadn't paid much notice, but we now think we should record it at least. We don't understand it though. Googling later, it seems that some people think it deters cats and dogs from urinating or something, but it's not clear why. Sounds a bit of an urban myth to me, and besides, we have barely seen a cat in all our time in Portugal.
No storks here!
Another ancient water pump. Some of the pipework looks relatively modern, though, so it may still be in service; we don't try it out.
We didn't know that Portuguese bullfighting was a thing, but obviously it is because there's a big sculpture at a roundabout on the edge of town. It doesn't look much like Spanish bullfighting, and indeed it's not. One major difference is that the bull is not normally killed in the fight, although having a bunch of small spears stuck in your back is probably still not much like fun for the bull.
Read the Wikipedia article about it for full details.
We're now back on the marina side of town, though not at the marina itself. We'll follow a trail down to the water's edge, not the road.
Looking through the grasses and wildflowers.
And that's the marina across the bay.
Now we'll more or less retrace our steps back to the boat and raise a toast to our final night.
Ginja is not ginger, it's cherry. We bought this back in Lisbon, you may recall.
And some lemon liqueur too, fresh from the freezer.
Almost mirror smooth.
Goodnight.
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