Lagos and Portimao Portugal, June 1, 2022
Day 8 started with a reverse of the hike we did on Day 6. We walked from the apartment back down and over the inlet to the train station to catch the train to Portimão. The trip was about 20 minutes and we had about 4 hours in Portimão before our return trip. The Lagos line of CP rail definitely has less trains on it then other cities we’ve been in, A total of about 5 trips a day between Lagos and Faro is all there is to choose from. We got into town a little before lunch and walked from the train station to the city center. In Portimão the train station is on the outskirts of town away from the waterfront or the city center so we had about a 10 minute walk to get to main part of the city.
We walked along the city center area and had lunch at the town square at a Delta Cafe which are all over Portugal. We’ve eaten or had coffee at a lot of them on this trip. Each is independently owned as far as I can tell and serve’s Delta coffee and some local food and deserts. We sat and ate lunch and people watched for a while before continuing on and heading down to the water front.
Portimão reminded us of a smaller version of Faro as we walked through it. We walked to the waterfront and sat and peopled watched while we started talking about the places we had been and which areas we liked best. We could do this as Portimão was the last planned city on this trip with a possible trip to Setobul when we get back to Lisbon in a few days.
After sitting for a while we wandered along the waterfront and stopped in at a local real estate office staffed by a bunch of swedish expats. We talked to them for a while about the rental and housing market before heading back towards the city center and the train station. On the way back we went into a Pingo Doce supermercado to check it out. It definitely had more fresh options then the Continente’s we had been in previously.
We had some time to waster while wating for our train back to Lagos so we continued our talk about the pros and cons of both Portimão and Lagos and deciding on our next trip we also need to check out Tavira which is east of Faro. But that we could live in either town if we wanted to. We feel Lagos has more to do and more nightlife but the prices in Portimão are better and it’s a 20 minute train ride to Lagos.
We caught the train for the 20 minute ride back to Lagos and got dinner in the city center before heading back up the hill to our apartment.
Cheers,
The Bald Traveler
Dave…