Portugal, Day 7: Sand and Sun

Today was a true vacation day.  After breakfast at the hotel (they had lots of stuff but I only had time for fruit and a croissant), we got on the bus and went to Sand City, which claims to be the biggest permanent exhibition of sand art in the world.  They had a whole garden of sand sculptures, made just from sand and water, pressed and carved into all sorts of shapes and designs, although most of them were people.  It only took about an hour to go through the whole thing, but it was really cool.  They had a few pieces that had been damaged and were covered up and areas cordoned off because of what I presume to be damage from the recent rains.  Some of the pieces had been there long enough to grow moss or plants, and some were very new.  They rotate the displays every so often, so there will be different things to see if you ever go back.

Then they took us back to the hotel for nearly six hours of free time, which we used to go down to the beach behind the hotel, swim in the heated indoor pool and go in the hotel's hot tub, and nap.  We also walked into town for a bite to eat and to get some snacks and drinks for tomorrow's bus ride back to Lisbon.  The beach was surrounded by cliffs of clay, and had perfect waves for surfing...if only we'd had access to a surfboard.  I was kind of surprised nobody was surfing there, because this area of Portugal is renowned for its good waves.  Maybe the water was just too cold (I dipped my feet in, and brrrrr!).  They had brochures for things to do in Algarve, and if we'd known about them and known we'd have this much free time earlier, we may have booked an excursion for a dolphin watching cruise or a cave kayaking tour, but hey, we needed a relaxing day before tomorrow's concert, and I'm happy with what we did.

For supper, we went to a nice restaurant in town, a bit further away from the hotel.  We got on the bus and passed a lot of cool architecture (very jumpable) and art on the way.  There were about half a dozen rotaries on our journey, and each of them had a big art sculpture in the center.  The bus was going too fast to take any pictures of them, but I appreciate that they were there.  There was a man with a paper airplane in one hand and a paper boat in the other, a series of walls covered with decorative tiles, some giant globes, dolphins, and my favorite was a couple of worms wrapped around each other smiling, and you could see their tails coming up out of the ground on the little traffic islands approaching and leaving the rotary.  It was cute.  There were others I don't remember and a couple that were under construction.

The food at the restaurant was really good, and for once, the correct portions.  There was bread and a pumpkin-ish vegetable soup with croutons in it.  The main dish was pork with cheese and fig or prune stuffing covered with an orange sauce, steamed veggies, and mashed sweet potatoes.  Dessert was a fruit cake with berry sauce drizzle and ice cream made from prickly pears.  It was so good.

Now we're back at the hotel for the night, and we've got to pack up because we're checking out tomorrow morning, going to our rehearsal and concert, then going on a long bus ride back to Lisbon so we're close to the airport the next day when we leave.

1-Sand sculptures.
2-Beach.
3-Restaurant for supper had awesome jumping stuff.
4-Main dish, very fancy.