Holiday time – yippeeeeeeee 🙂

We are on holiday in Praia da Luz, in Portugal where we are staying in a lovely villa on the beach with very dear friends.  We arrived on Saturday and we had a very relaxing afternoon and evening beside the pool and in a local restaurant.  Oh, and the Mojito bar!

On Sunday we went out to a local restaurant for lunch at Fortaleza da Luz.

There was a jazz band playing in the grounds which added to the charm of this place, situated at the opposite end of town to our villa, next to the large church. There was a fixed price menu.  We have been pleasantly surprised by the prices here which are cheaper than at home. We had a table overlooking the beach.  This is the view towards rocky outcrops on the western side of town. It was a very hot day – cheers ! We got through a few of these jugs of Sangria. The kean eyed may have noticed there were no vegetarian options on the menu but the staff were very obliging and brought me a salad for starter.  It may look plain but the vegetables were so fresh I really enjoyed it.  We had previously enjoyed bread with olive oil and garlic and olives.  As a main they made me another salad which was again, fresh and flavoursome.  It came with an egg and some cheese which I donated. It was a very hot walk back to the villa, through the pretty cobbled streets of Luz. Harvey is now nearly as tall as his sister. Our villa is the farthest building at the opposite end of the beach from where I stood to take this picture which is perfectly located for town and beach. Our time in the pool has been great fun but we decided it could be enhanced with some inflatables. Fun became even more fun. What a shame Sundays can’t always be like this! The beanbags at the villa are perfect for some quiet time and relaxing. We had a simple supper in the villa after our huge lunch.  More salad and bread and loads of fruit but I did also have some cheese which is the one bit of dairy I am finding hardest to give up.  The Brie, bought from the local supermarket was good. On Monday we went to Boca do Rio, a different beach slightly West of Luz.  It was a cloudy morning but warm enough to enjoy a morning on the beach. A river runs along one end of the beach which the children had been planning to build dams across but this area had had a dry Summer so far so the river was not flowing.There was enough water to enjoy though.
We just about managed to find a spot to sit on on the Boca.

There was hardly anyone here which is our preference. For lunch we went to a nearby town called Salema.  There is a large sandy beach at Salema and a tiny town, filled mainly with pizza places so we settled in the only restaurant that looked as if it served a variety of foods.  I don’t know the name of it which is a shame as the service we so friendly and they had vegetarian options – hurrah.  The ratatouille and polenta chips were the best meal I have had here so far.  Absolutely delicious. Everyone enjoyed their meal in here, whether they had salads or fresh sardines.  A big thumbs up from us all. After another relax by the villa pool and a swim in the ocean, we headed in to Luz and ate at Paradiso, our hosts favourite restaurant.  We all like it here.  The restaurant is on the beach and when the children are bored of our chit chat they can go off and play on the beach. They do have 2 vegetarian options and I chose the vegetable burger which was tasty enough but didn’t come with any salad or vegetables. Before and after dinner we spent rather a lot of time in the Mojito bar where things tend to get a bit blurry.  We had a great evening in there 🙂