Continue Exploring the Secrets of Algarve Portugal on an interesting journey

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As we  are nearing the end of 2010, with the fun and festivity of Christmas and the new year approaching, its time to also plan those day out. Whether you plan to spend your Christmas holidays in a warmer place with friends and family, or you are planning your Easter or summer holiday for next year, its time to book now. It won’t be long before air fares are up, already with the Air Passenger Duty having gone up, and before the best cottages in Cornwall, or Portugal villas for rent get taken up. If you are planning to start your journey of exploration for your forthcoming holidays in Portugal, read on for some interesting secrets waiting to be discovered in its warm, seaside towns.

Perhaps you also didn’t know that the city of Lagos in Portugal was attacked by Francis Drake, one of England’s most famous corsairs, or that off Lagos Bay in 1693, France’s Admiral Tourville sank an Anglo-Dutch convoy of 80 ships commanded by England’s Admiral Rooke.  Another secret of Algarve Portugal waiting to be discovered is the Algarve Ethnographic and Costume Museum in São Brás de Alportel includes a reconstruction of an old barber’s shop? Such shops were a hangout where the richer classes met to gossip and discuss politics.  During your Algarve holidays, you can discover how Algarve chimneys, with their clearly Moorish influence, only began to be produced 200 years after the Arabs were driven from the region. Use your Portugal holidays to learn the romantic Moorish stories centred on the African coast.  As you enjoy Portuguese wine during your Algarve holidays, it might be interesting to discover how the grapes of the region saved the quality of northern wine in the 19th century. Grapes were taken to estates in the Douro region to be blended with what little northern varieties remained after a devastating onslaught of disease.

The town of Albufeira in Portugal still preserves in the streets of Cerro da Vila (medieval area) the picturesque appeal of whitewashed houses and steeply narrow streets. Travessa da Igreja Velha, an old Moorish arch in Albufeira Portugal indicates the place where a primitive mosque once stood, which was, later transformed into the town's first church.  On the beach, near the beach villas in Albufeira Portugal, the bright colours of the fishing boats contrast with the blue of the sea. The fishermen continue to carry on the task of mending and preparing the nets, as they have done for hundreds of years.  A walk by the sea will offer you a magnificent view over the city, the beaches and the cliffs which are part of the charm of Albufeira Portugal. The sidewalk leads to the pretty cave at Xorino, where according to the local tradition the Moors took refuge when the town was re-conquered by the Christians in the 13th century.

Such sights and secrets and many more still wait to be seen and experienced during your holidays in Portugal. You must not miss an opportunity to uncover these, while spending memorable time with loved ones during your next Algarve holidays!