Day trip to Vila Nova de Milfontes

 Friday 19/08/22

We decided to break the routine at the house-sit and head out for a day trip to our favourite Portuguese coastal village, Milfontes.  

We decided that this would be good to prevent us from becoming complete hermits, give a chance for a rare meal out and the opportunity to do some shopping.  As an added bonus, we knew from last year that the temperatures are much more tolerable on the coast.

A good indicator of the water temp is the total lack of swimmers.

The drive down took us around an hour and, as we know the town quite well we could get to the parking area without too much trouble.  We were a little worried as the sand in the large car park was very fine and quite loose but we parked somewhere we felt was safe for Bokkie.

We had a lovely wander through the town, packed with (mainly Portuguese) holidaymakers enjoying the lovely weather.  Toni had researched all the restaurants and we headed for our first choice which was luckily fairly quiet as we tend to eat early.  We both ordered seafood skewers, mine with octopus and Toni's with monkfish.  We are usually so careful about checking that there are no prawns or shrimps as I am allergic but, for some reason, we forgot to ask this time.  Imagine our horror when we found the skewers were liberally filled with huge prawns!  Luckily the waiter was very understanding and they re-made mine with chorizo; both meals were really lovely.

We headed back to Bokkie only to find that the 'safe' route we had used to our parking spot was now blocked by parked cars and we had to go around the field to get out, definitely not part of the plan.  As expected, Bokkie bogged down in the sand, but managed to get out on the third attempt - this was the closest we have come to getting her stuck and will make sure we stay alert.  She's a big girl and definitely not designed to get out of soft spots.

On the way home she made her displeasure known as she entered limp mode a few times, eventually causing us to pull over, switch her off and on again before carrying on again.  

We should have called her 'Microsoft'...

Bokkie still causes quite a stir when returning - we feel like celebrities.

All in all, it was a lovely day out!  We are heading into a heatwave with upper-30 degree days, so happy to stay put again for a while.