WHAT JJ WEARS

Hi sweethearts!

As you guys probably know I visited the Algarve and Lisbon this month!

 I stayed there for nine days and I also shot some new summery content (ofcourse) :) Since you guys like my vacation feed so far, I thought it would be fun to tell you a bit more about the places I visited and the stories behind my photos. I think everyone can relate that a vacation always has its ups and downs and Instagram mostly only shows the ups ;) Soooo, I hope you have fun reading my kind-of-traveldiary-blogpost!

Day one: Let’s go!

This first day was all about getting to our vacation villa. Around 12:30 we got in the car and we drove to Eindhoven Airport. Everything went quite smoothly and we arrived two hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. After we checked in our luggage, we had some herbal tea at La Place and waited till we could board the plane. The boarding also went smoothly and around 16:30 when everyone got their seat we expected to take off soon. Unfortunately, then the news came that we should wait two hours (in the plane!) due to French strike. Everyone was really frustrated and people started to complain about all sorts of things, like it’s too hot in the plane. Luckily we got good news after one hour: we could take off a bit earlier then expected. At 19:30, local time, (there is an one hour time difference) we finally landed in Faro. Then we had to wait for our luggage, after which we headed to the guy that waited for us to get us to our rental car. Somewhere around 20:30 we got the keys to our rental car: a cute white Fiat Panda. Before we headed to our vacation villa, we first needed to do some groceries in the nearest supermarket. Sooo around 21:15 it was finally time to find our way to the vacation villa, which was located 45 minutes from the airport. It started to get dark and our navigation app constantly tried to send us to small-not-existing-private-sand-roads. By the end when we finally reached our vacation villa, the only thing we did was eat and drink a bit and go to bed.

Day two: Vigario Falls & Algarve shopping

Because we were still kind of tired, we decided to take it easy and visit the small Vigario Falls in Alte first (the place where our vacation villa was also located). We needed to park our car at the small parking lot next to the local cemetery, from where the path to the waterfall started. After 5-10 minutes of walking down, we could already hear the waterfall and in a minute also see it. I loved this cute, quiet and totally not crowded place. We took some pictures and enjoyed this place a bit, after which we headed back to our car. Next up, was the Algarve shopping centre in Guia. Well known brands like, Stradivarius, Zara and Pull&Bear are located here, but also a huge supermarket. I didn’t buy that much, but I couldn’t resist buying a white Zara dress. We also had some coffee & tea in the restaurant area and did some more groceries in the large supermarket, before we headed back to our holiday home.

*Since I’m lactose-intolerant, gluten sensitive and a vegetarian (yes it’s a lot I know xp) it was quite hard for me to eat a proper meal at restaurants. That’s why I brought my own gluten/lactosefree bread from home which I brought with me everywhere. I must say that the large supermarkets have quite some gluten and/or lactosefree products to choose from, which was perfect for me. The only thing that they don’t really have is a large range of ‘vegetarian meat’. Nevertheless, we were able to cook something decent every evening at our vacation villa. When we did eat something at a restaurant I ordered some fries and a smoothie, which I could perfectly eat with my bread :)

Day three: Silves, Portimão & Carvoeiro

This third day we started with a visit to Silves, an old town, which is mostly known because of it’s castle. There isn’t much room to park your car, but luckily we found a nice spot. Then we had to walk for like five minutes untill we reached the entrance of the castle. The entrance fee is only €2,80 and there is a little cafe with toilets within the courtyard. You won’t really spend a lot of time here, say 30 minutes, because it’s mostly a walk around the ancient wall, butttt I still enjoyed it and the panoramic views. After visiting the castle we went to the nearby cathedral, which costs only around €1,00. It’s not that big, but still nice to visit; especially if you’re already visiting the castle.

Next up, was a stop at Portimão: a large city in the western Algarve. We wanted to visit a church, but it was closed and we couldn’t really find any information why haha. That’s why we just had another relaxing moment with some coffee, tea and a ham/cheese sandwich (no ham/cheese sandwich for me xp), after which we explored the streets a bit. We only bought one souvenir and decided to leave Portimão and go to Carvoeiro.

When Portimão was a bit disappointing, Carvoeiro is one of those places you should definitely visit. I just loved the cute shopping street with souvenir shops, which ends in this pretty beach surrounded by limestone cliffs. To end our day we had a delicious smoothie at one of the beach restaurants ‘Jan‘.

Day four: Lagos & Algar Seco

On the fourth day we decided to visit beautiful Lagos. I just loved the pretty streets, souvenir shops and there are also quite some interesting places to visit. You can visit the Igreja de Santo Antonio (church) and the connected museum, but also Antigo Mercado de Escravos, and Forte da Ponta da Bandeira. The last two things are interesting to visit, but you won’t need more then 10 minutes to see it all. I also wanted to share this really nice restaurant ‘Alma Cafe‘ with you, since we had one of our best meals there during our entire holiday. The view and whole atmosphere at this place is also great :)

Around 14:30 it was time to leave Lagos and visit Algar Seco. This is a rock formation, also known as caves, from which you have a gorgeous view overlooking the ocean. We parked our car at the parking lot, from which we went downwards by a lot of steps. It was really windy that day, so it was kind of a struggle to take pretty pictures there ;p After we enjoyed the view, we decided that we would enjoy a smoothie at the same restaurant we were the day before: ‘Jan’.

Day five: Faro & Designer Outlet Algarve

We were also quite excited to visit Faro, the capital city of the Algarve. This city has a gorgeous old part and I really liked the old streets and buildings. First of all we went to Igreja do Carmo (a church), from which you can also visit the impressive Capela dos Ossos. This is a chapel which is lined with the bones and skulls of over 1000 munks. This chapel and the corresponding church are definitely worth a visit, especially since the entrance fee is only €2. After we visited these places, it was time to go to the Sé de Faro, also known as the Cathedral of Faro. This was also a really nice place to visit: you can visit the entire church, there is a small museum in it, a small garden, and you can also climb the tower from which you have a great view. The entrance fee was again, really low: €3,50. After strolling through the pretty streets a bit, we decided to leave Faro and go to Designer Outlet Algarve: something we saw on our way to Faro. It was a nice place to visit, but in my opinion the prices aren’t any different from an online sale on websites like Zalando or the website of the brand itself. Another thing that bothered me was the fact that the sales advisers immediately asked if they could help you and kind of stared at you when you walked around the shop. I didn’t buy anything here, but we did find a nice place to drink some coffee and tea: ‘Baguette de Paris‘.

Day six: Let’s go to Lisbon & Quinta da Regaleira

On day six we woke up early so we could leave at 8:00 in the morning. Eventually we arrived around 11:30 at a parking lot near Sintra (a village nearby Lisbon with a lot of pretty castles). Before arriving here we drove almost one hour through this village. It was almost impossible to find a parking space, streets were narrow and steep, we took the wrong exit which was a long and steep one-way road, and it was just really frustrating. In the end we parked our car at the first available parking place we saw, even though it was at a kind of abandoned trainstation at the edge of the village. First of all we didn’t even wanted to visit the castle we had in mind anymore, but after we calmed ourselfs down we took a cab which dropped us off at the entrance of the castle ‘Quinta da Regaleira’. Luckily, there was a really short line and we were in the beautiful gardens within a few minutes. The first thing we did was finding the restaurant/terrace to eat and drink something; the view from this place was already gorgeous. Next it was time to explore the large and beautiful estate. I absolutely loved it, we went to the initiation well first and walked all the way down to the bottom from which you enter an illuminated cave. Furthermore, there were just so much more hidden passages, tunnels, places and waterfalls, which made my visit to this place unforgettable. We stayed here for about two hours and had an amazing time; the entrance fee is only €6. After visiting this place we needed to find a cab that could take us back to the parking lot. The only problem was that there weren’t any cabs up on this hill. We waited for about 10 minutes, untill we saw an empty Tuk Tuk. It was a hilarious and bumpy ride that took almost 30 minutes, but in the end we got back to the parking lot. The only thing we had to do next was finding our holiday apartment in the city centre of Lisbon. This went quite smoothly actually, since there was a parking garage within 5 minutes walking distance. The holiday apartment was also very nice and modern (even though the dishes weren’t really clean) and was located on the top floor with two pretty roof terraces. We also found a nice restaurant just around the corner of our apartment, after which we got back to our apartment and enjoyed the gorgeous city view.

Day seven: Lisbon

Again, we woke up early to be able to explore as much of Lisbon as possible. After our breakfast box was brought to our apartment (I ate my brought-by-myself-food again), we left our apartment and decided to take a cab to the first thing we wanted to visit: the National Pantheon. I loved the architecture of this building and the roof terrace made this place totally worth visiting! Then we walked 15 minutes to the Praça do Comércio, which is a gorgeous large square. Ofcourse I took some photos here and we also had a delicious smoothie and some fries at one of the restaurants (yayy!). Then we took a cab to the Cemitério dos Prazeres, the largest cemetery of Lisbon with impressive family tombstones. You could also easily see the coffins inside, due to glass doors. It was just a really interesting and quiet place to visit and walk around. The next thing we wanted to do was visiting the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos and Torre de Belem. In the end we only visited the church next to the monastery and only enjoyed the monastery from the outside. Also there was a huge line in front of the Torre de Belem, which made us decide to not visit it anymore, but have a drink at a nearby restaurant instead. Then it was time to get into a cab and head back to the city centre to do some shopping. Strolling through some streets we stumbled upon this cute vintage store called ‘Electric Tiger’: I immediately needed to get in and bought a perfect vintage denim Levi’s blouse. We also bought some other small items and some souvenirs in other shops, after which we headed back to the parking garage and drove back to our holiday home in the Algarve.

Day eight: Albufeira

Since we were super exhausted from our small Lisbon trip, we decided to not do that much on our last day. We heard some stories about Albufeira and since we haven’t visited this place before, we decided to go there. Well, it really is a touristic city with souvenir shops and restaurants everywhere. I didn’t really like the touristic part, although there also were some cute more unique souvenir shops. We also had a quick stop at Peneco beach, which is connected via a tunnel to the old town. After drinking another smoothie on a terrace somewhere around the old town square, we headed back to our holiday home to relax a bit and enjoy our last day here.

Day nine: Let’s go home!

We needed to wake up early and leave the vacation villa at 07:00 in the morning. Everything went quite smoothly and after we dropped off our rental car and were brought to the airport, we could wait for our flight back home.

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