Fuseta Portugal

Not much of a blog this one. We’ve spent two nights in Fuseta Monocarpacho, and one and a bit days (as you’d guess). This is rural Portugal, only about nine miles east of Faro, maybe only thirty from Albufira.
Fuseta is a fishing village and as per the previous post (maybe not explained specifically), and an area of `semi subsistence farming’. I say that because clearly some of what’s grown here goes elsewhere, but from the shops and stalls, quite a bit stays nearby.

The Entry Channel to the Village

Birds a Way out on the Sandbars

Inner Beach, Outer Sandbar

Channel Through the Sandbar to the Sea

There is a small fish market (which we couldn’t go in). A tiny railway station and train service and overall it’s just pretty and quaint and local. There are a couple of hotels or apartment blocks all closed up for winter, and there is our municipal campsite.

Fully Tiled Buildings

It’s a two night town if you’re touring, though there are plenty of over winterers on the campsite (predominantly French and Dutch). Fuseta is everything Isla Cristina just a way back over the border in Spain could be. A small fishing village with salt pans for preservation and a nature reserve. The difference couldn’t be more pronounced, this place is fantastic, clean within the parameters of a small town at the mercy of the Atlantic, cheerful and friendly.

Storks and Waders

Disused Salt Pan

Highlights for us have been the birds on the disused salt pans, eating fish and prawns caught that day in a restaurant that expands its alfresco seating and re-jigs everything on the fly to accommodate the customers, the fish is cooked on a double level Barbeque on the pavement, the salads, bread, olives and a half litre carafe of wine and beer and desert (as per previous post all come in at €20 or €25 and the bill amount is written on your paper tablecloth). They only do lunch, in the evenings they are closed.

Borage and Bees

Train

There are good well marked cycle paths, that zigzag between small holdings and homes and cross single track an unmade roads here and there. I was constantly reminded of England in spring, but for the occasional cactus or Prickly Pear.

That's Some Fresh Fish

There is something to be said for the land management here, Bees are everywhere. The lanes where the Borage grows actually hum with the noise of bees  (as did the almond groves way back in Spain). If there is a problem with bees in the UK, then based on what we’ve seen here, we the people are likely to be the problem somehow or another.

The sand bars just off shore are a protected area, though you can pick up a small boat and be dropped on them for an hour or two. They extend for at least twenty miles and when we get to Faro, we may go on one of the boat tours if they’re running.

It’s been pleasant and we looked forward to more of Portugal.

Lunch

Shadow Selfy

Urchin