The adventure continues on and today, this section of the Iberian Adventure tour with Busabout will see us leaving behind the Spanish city of Seville. After spending one night here we make our way further west, crossing the Guadiana River along the Iberian coastline which is the border between Spain and Portugal and onto the city of Lagos. Before we leave Spain for the next couple of days we will make a short stop to one of the most impressive sites in Seville; the stunning Plaza de Espana.
Today the plaza is used to house a couple of government buildings for the area and also houses the Seville Town Hall. It is also a well known backdrop location for some of the worlds best known films including Star Wars Episode I & II as well as the older movie Lawrence of Arabia. Most recently the Plaza de Espana featured in the comedy The Dictator. We were given about 45 minutes to check out the plaza before we had to be back on the coach for our departure. Once we left we had a couple of hours on board making our way further west into Portugal and the seaside town of Lagos where we are taken straight to our accommodation for the next two nights.
This time we got to stay somewhere a little different. We are not staying in a hotel or a hostel but we are staying in a large house with many different rooms and a large swimming pool that overlooks the town and the beach in the distance. It was a nice place to relax and sit by the pool taking everything in. On arrival we were greeted by our host Vitor who then took us all individually to our rooms that we would call home for the next two nights and after settling in some people including myself opted for a swim in the pool and later on we all got ourselves ready to go out to dinner as a group with the plan being afterwards to go on a bar crawl organised by our guide Marysol.
For dinner we had three options that were prearranged on the coach before arriving into Lagos which were: Steak, Fish or a Vegetarian option which makes it sound like we are going to a wedding function. None the less it was really good and quite amusing at the same time as our tour group pretty much took up the whole restaurant and other people needed to line up outside and wait until we had finished before they could come in. It was recommended to us to try what is called Green Wine which simply means young wine or the White Sangria as apparently even though we are in Portugal they make it really well here. I opted to try out the White Sangria as we had been drinking the Red Sangria all over Spain so far, however I must say it wasn’t really to my liking so I have now decided to stick to good old Red Sangria.
Once dinner was over we headed out to our first bar of the evening which was quite nice. It was called Bon Vivant and has a roof top bar which gave us views over the old city. Tonight there was a super moon that appeared over the horizon while we were sitting there which was quite nice. From Bon Vivant we went onto the next bar called Whytes which had two things to keep us all entertained, the first being the nine deadly sins. If you accepted the challenge you are timed sculling nine different shots (which were doubles) to try and beat the record times that have been written down on the blackboards above the bar.
On completion no matter what your time is you get to walk away with a t-shirt with the name of the bar on it. It was quite fun to watch people attempt it including our two guides, however for €30.00 it is quite an expensive thing to do so keep that in mind if you want to attempt it. The second thing you can do at this bar is after 11:00pm whenever you purchase a drink you get to roll the dice, if your number is higher than the bartender then you get your drink for free, a lot of people in our group were successful at this ensuring a messy night was to be had.
Finally, to end off the night the group heads out to one final bar where you can stay until the early hours of the morning and stagger your way back to the house by walking up the hill or by catching a taxi home. Many people caught the taxi which apparently costed about €5.00, so not much at all but the house is located pretty close so it’s rather easy to walk back, although a few couldn’t remember where it was so opted for the taxi option.
It was about 50/50 in terms of the amount of people who stayed out late and who went back after the second bar, so you don’t need to stay out all night to have a good time and I personally only went to the first two bars and enjoyed myself a lot getting to know everyone in the group. Before walking back to the house I decided to go for a walk along the river front of Lagos to check it out at night which was quite nice before calling it a night.
Day 03: Lagos – 31 August, 2015
Today we have a full day in Lagos which is a nice change from being on the coach everyday. We started the morning off by walking down to the main square Praça de Gil Eanes in town to restock on some cash from the ATM and to grab a bite for breakfast. You can grab breakfast back at the house but this morning we opted to do so down in town for something a little different costing only a coupe of Euro and well worth the walk down.
[wpgmza id=”106″]It was a pretty late start to the day with most people sleeping in before the optional activity today of Sea Kayaking around he beautiful Lagos coastline launching from Batata Beach, this optional activity will set you back €25.00 which is pretty good for an afternoon adventure on the sea. Before going down to the beach to start our Kayaking our guide Marysol took us all down to a Peri-Peri Chicken Take Away restaurant where we could order a half chicken, chips and a drink for €6.00 which was really good and tasty, not to mention cheap. It was like eating Nando’s in Portugal itself, without actually going to Nando’s as I’m sure the Portuguese people would be ashamed at what is being passed off as Portuguese food in our restaurants back home. After lunch we still had a bit of time to kill until our kayaking started at 2:00pm so we all had some time to wander the streets which gave some of us the opportunity to check out the riverside market in Lagos.
It was looking like a pretty laid back day today which was really nice. Lagos is such a small town so you also don’t feel the pressure to rush around and see everything. Then once it was time to meet up we all arrived at the kick off point for the kayaking trip and were assigned our life vest and paddle. We also paired up for the two person kayaks and after a brief demonstration we were split into two large groups and were on our way.
As we navigated ourselves around the coastline the major features of the landscape were pointed out to us. It was quite amazing to see how similar the coastline was with Australia’s own Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles. The highlight was being able to manoeuvre our kayaks through small cave entrances and back out again trying not to crash into each other. In one such cave we were all able to fit inside, this cave had a big opening at the top so you could still see the sky. An adventurous bird decided to knock a rock over the edge which nearly hit someone in the head but luckily just caused a sudden splash in the water and made a few people jump out of their skin.
During the kayaking trip we also got a rest break at one of the small beaches situated in a small cove. Here we were joined by another five or so kayaking groups so the beach is completely full in no time. It was a good stop just to rest and to have a bit of a swim in the now chilly water at this time of year. Many people opted to sunbake on the small bit of beach that had sun, however just before we were leaving the tide came in a bit and completely soaked some of the girls and their towels.
Once our time was up we headed back the way we came, paddling pretty much non-stop the whole way back. We will be feeling those muscles the next day! We did stop at one point as some boys had climbed up a large rock face of a small limestone island and were going to attempt to jump off. They took a while to decide to jump off until our guide yelled out for them to hurry up we don’t have all day, to which they then jumped.
After we arrived back at the starting point the rest of the day was ours to do with how we wished. We walked along the market where I picked up a wallet made out of cork which was pretty cool given Portugal is the home to cork. We then went back to the house where we freshened up and had the option of joining the group to walk into town to have dinner at a burger shop that specialises in burgers having dirty names. Quite a lot of people decided to go out on their own to find dinner as most were starving from the work out we all did today, I found just a quick fast food burger place.
Tonight was a relatively quiet night as most people had a big one the night before. Tomorrow we are back on the coach and leave Lagos and Portugal and head back across to Spain and even further south by catching the ferry to Africa and the Moroccan city of Tangier for our one night in a new continent.
THE IBERIAN ADVENTURE TOUR CONTINUES, CLICK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING…
NEXT: Lagos to Tangier via Tarifa – Day 04 Busabout Iberian Adventure Tour
PREVIOUS: Madrid to Seville via Cordoba – Day 01 Busabout Iberian Adventure Tour
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Tangier to Granada – Day 05 & 06 Busabout Iberian Adventure Tour
Granada to Madrid via Consuegra & Toledo – Day 07 Busabout Iberian Adventure Tour
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