I had a short uneventful drive on clear roads to the Portuguese border. Next time I’ll stop and take a photo because the bridge crossing the River Guadiana, which separates Spain from Portugal, is really spectacular.
As soon as I’d crossed the border and bought my road toll ticket (after a few fruitless attempts with different debit and credit cards), the promised Coastal Weather Event materalised and soon my windscreen wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain even on the fastest setting.
I’d agreed to meet the wonderful Jules from Tavira Long-Term Lettings, who arranged my long-term apartment lease, in the glamorous setting of Lidl car park. She arrived in torrential rain, handed over the key and left me to my own devices.
It was only a 10 minute drive to the apartment in Santa Luiza, a fishing village a couple of km outside Tavira, but it took a good couple of hours before the apartment block and underground carpark yielded their mysteries – and I was finally in and unpacked!
The apartment block is arranged as a rough rectangle around a central area with a small swimming pool, which will be nice in summer. The apartment itself is big and comfortable. The decor is a bit dated, but I can live with that.
After that, I set off in search of a few provisions. The merchandise at Lidl was somewhat different from back home.
I’ve realised that home deliveries are going to be more difficult here. There’s no Portuguese Amazon site either. I could order from Spain, Germany or the UK, but I don’t fancy my chances of getting anything delivered in this maze of apartments.
I found that you can arrange delivery to the UK depot of a Portuguese courier firm that makes regular deliveries here – then you pick your goods up from the local depot. I made a small order of UK-EU plug adaptors (forgot to bring enough) from Amazon to see if it works…
It finally stopped raining, leaving just enough time to take a walk to the water front. It’s not really the sea, more like an inland lagoon area. The beaches (reputedly amazing) are a short ferry ride away. Santa Luzia is clearly a very busy working fishing village, judging by the number of fishing boats and boat sheds. There are plenty of little bars and restaurants too.
