Villa Mirador near Silves, Portugal # 1

Have you missed me? OK no need to answer that question! We've enjoyed a very relaxing two weeks with the family. But why am I so tired now I've returned home~ there was no time difference so no jet lag, the journey, although short (2.5hrs), was tiring because of all the waiting about at the airport. I really don't know how Sam managed as she travelled for about 24 hours to join us for a week. It was so lovely to have everyone all together and such a shame that Fred couldn't join us.

We arrived at Faro mid afternoon. By the time we had picked up our hire car (a sparkling new Renault Clio only delivered that day) and Embee had worked out all the controls we were quite late beginning the drive to our villa. Embee did not enjoy driving a left hand drive car on the right hand side of the road. By the time we reached the villa (I navigated!!).... Beccy and Co had been in the pool for a couple of hours and after a quick tour we joined them.
This was our first views as we drove down an extremely dusty lane with masses of potholes and orange and lemon groves on either side.
You can't see from this photo that the drive is actually narrows at the top near the villa, but luckily there was a turning point so no real problems.

I took a lot of photos around the pool so I will be sharing more with you over the coming days!


The first evening we went into the town of Silves, about a 15 minute drive from where we were staying. We wandered around trying to decide where to have dinner. We were actually spoiled for choice as there are so many restaurants to choose from. It was so lovely to be able to sit outside and enjoy a leisurely meal. I have a lot more photos taken in and around Silves, including some pictures of very special inhabitants but I'm saving these for a future post.