Wake up to see the rest of our surroundings. We're on the ground floor with a little patio overlooking the pool. There aren't many flats but they're all white and tile, and a few sun yellow sun loungers by the pool. Gulls overhead.
We're in Albufeira old town and a five minute walk from the beach and the tourist streets around the square. There's a tunnel through to the beach and several streets and lanes, cobbled, some with little Moorish looking arches and restaurants, bars and tourist shops. Sunny and any number of places to stop for coffee or beer.
Ask at reception about supermarkets, having seen the high prices and pathetic produce at the corner shops. Well, there's one near the cemetery; sometimes open, sometimes closed. It's open, but we seem to be the only customers and we can see why. The prices are horrific and not really compensated for by quality or variety, unfortunately. but we do get a few things as a start, and on the way back stop at a little shop for what later proves to be a perfectly drinkable bottle of red for €1.95. There's no sign of a clerk at the till here so I gesture with the bottle toward the two old-timers sitting warming themselves on a bench outside the door, thinking one is the proprietor. He's not, but when he bellows "Joao" a bald man shuffles in from an adjoining room and takes my money.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS