Supermarket Sweep – Same Everywhere

Back in the mid 90s when I first visited Albufeira, there was one supermarket in town, the Modelo just to the east of the old centre, and it was neither large nor inexpensive. Things change: although it’s still there, the Modelo is now larger (and being extended) and has become much keener on price, partly because it’s now part of the Continente group.

Another part of the reason for keener prices is that discounter Lidl has also arrived in town during the intervening time, and with a large car park and seven days a week opening. Many expats from across the more northern European countries shop here: it’s a name they know. No, it’s not merely about competition, but brand awareness and the size of the market: both these stores stay busy most of their opening hours.

Added to the mix recently has been a largish Pingo Doce outlet, which suggests that the market for locals’ custom is also growing: this is a brand that you would normally associate with convenience store and town centre shops, and it’s not one I’ve seen outside Portugal. For instance, you’ll find their stores in the building by Track 5 of Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia station (oriented towards travellers – always a good stock of inexpensive sarnies), and tucked away on the city’s Rua 1. Dezembro (manically busy, and an indication of how many folk live in the Baixa).

There are also the inevitable out of town supermarkets – Continente have one nearby – and other chains (the Jumbo in Faro is part of the French Groupe Auchan). Apart from the absence of the usual British culprits, this is the same kind of retail scenery you might encounter anywhere in Europe (the bus journey from Budapest airport to the Metro terminus takes you past one of the city’s substantial Tesco stores).

All this, we are told, gives us what we want, and, more or less, whenever we want it. But it also enables various large organisations to grab market share, so is not so different across borders.

Not Dead and Still Red

The UK media tends to cover elections in other countries on a distinctly irregular basis – except for the USA, where we get pretty thorough coverage of the Presidential elections, and often the mid-term ones too. Not so with other EU countries, which is odd, given that so many punters and politicians enjoy banging on about that same EU.

So while I know that there is an election happening somewhere on the Algarve some time soon, as I haven’t asked around or tried to unpick the Portuguese posters and fliers, I don’t know what’s up for grabs. But I do know the identity of one of the parties on the ballot.

There are an awful lot of posters for the PCP. Who they? Well, mastery of the language on this occasion is not necessary. The familiar hammer and sickle device at the foot of the poster tells you that this is the Portuguese Communist Party. And they’re hot on dealing with corruption.

Other European countries also have Communist parties active in local and national politics. But then, most of the demands in the original Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels have become part of the mainstream.

A Direct Journey

In more relaxed mode today, and a trip to Faro for a walk around the old town, along with a stroll around the marina. The journey pointed up one of those areas where languages do not easily translate between one another, and the difference in traffic volumes between weekdays and weekends. And there were interesting sights along the way.

Eva put on a so-called Directa bus between Albufeira and Faro on weekdays (altogether, the weekend service offers only a third of the weekday service level). I’d used it before, and wondered what was “direct” about it when compared with its seven days a week “normal” cousin. My assumption was wide of the mark: the use of the term Directa means “limited stop”. This would have been useful information for the bloke who should have got off this morning’s bus in Almancil and found himself carried on to the outskirts of Faro.

Faro’s old town, which is worth the detour, is also no less crawling with traffic than the rest of the city. After all, many of the buildings are residential property, and if you arrange so much of life around the motor vehicle, residents will buy cars and want access, wherever they live. And where many of the expats live can be glimpsed from the windows of that bus as it picks its way around the coastal towns and villages on its way into Faro.

The glimpse is possible as you pass by the golf courses, country clubs and upmarket resort complexes that are Vilamoura. Here, there is also a marina filled with the most upmarket of yachts: the equivalent in Faro has only small motor boats on view, as the bridge carrying the railway over the entrance is welded shut. Those golf courses look unnaturally green, due to regular watering, and their regulars, if they do not live in the resort, have their satisfyingly expensive homes in Vale do Lobo or Quinta do Lago.

They shop at the Apolonia supermarket near Almancil, as there are English speaking greeters, plenty of free parking spaces, and lots of reassuringly familiar brands. The locals frequent the little Minipreço in the town centre, where no English is spoken, there is no car parking outside, and if it’s on the shelves, it’s usually Dia own brand.

Those folks on the golf course may look down their noses at the punters on Albufeira’s “strip”, but the idea is much the same: both want the parts of countries like Portugal that appeal to them, while keeping out the locals.

Pass The Sick Bag

Back in the regrettably brief heady days of British Rail’s Advanced Passenger Train (APT), which was abandoned, setting travel on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) back a quarter of a century, argument raged over whether tilting trains induced a kind of travel sickness in passengers. On APT’s inaugural trip from Glasgow to London, many of the assembled hacks thought it did, but then, many of them were still in a tender state after not getting to bed nice and early.

Eventually it was conceded that, when the tilt of the train compensated fully for the increased side force generated by cornering, it was possible for the brain to think that the train was travelling in a straight line, only for the passenger to then look out the window to see that it was not – and thus the occasional sickness. BR sorted this by making the tilt mechanism compensate less than fully for the cornering force, which tilting trains generally all do nowadays.

Even so, the case is made across Europe that tilting trains using the Fiat hydraulic tilt system are prone to make their occupants feel queasy, and I have to confess that during a journey from Lisbon to the Algarve back in 2006 I felt less than comfortable at one point, but it was dark, so the case above should not apply. It was with this in mind that I boarded the Alfa Pendular service on Monday afternoon at Albufeira, worked by a train with the Fiat tilt system. We certainly generated some aircraft style bank angles, given that the train body can tilt up to nine degrees, and the banking of the track has to be added in. But there was no queasiness.

So I was reassured, but clearly not everyone is happy: these trains have sick bags provided, discreetly deployed with any mention of sickness on the side away from the passenger. Knowing that some will not believe me, I took one as proof.

[Trains using the Fiat tilt system include the Italo-Swiss Cisalpino, the Italian ETR 460, 470 and 480, and the Spanish Alaris, as well as the Portuguese Alfa Pendular. Similar trains operate in the Czech Republic, Finland and Slovenia. However, the Pendolino trains operated by Virgin Trains on the WCML use the Swiss SIG electronic tilt system, which is also proving surprisingly reliable. So there]

On The Mark

After checking out of the residencial this morning – not totally straightforward, as the card reading device had to be kicked to get it to work – I had a few photos to take in and around Lisbon and then it was time to head for Gare Oriente for the train back to Albufeira. Oriente is one legacy from the 1998 Expo, and is memorable for its spectacular and delicate looking overall roof. Fortunately it also has waiting areas below the otherwise bare looking platforms, although the toilets, which still look as temporary as they did back in 2001, are routinely disgusting.

The train’s First Class was almost full, many of them British expats or visitors, and we not only left on time, but remained on time all the way: at Funcheira we even had to wait time, and there was enough in hand for the wait at Luzianes for the northbound Alfa Pendular for it not to matter. All this, despite there being an irritatingly noticeable number of temporary speed restrictions, one or two to just 30 km/h. This is a lesson that the coach operators could learn from: most of the rail route is single track, so it’s important for the schedule to be as robust as possible.

Even so, the Intercidade is nothing like as fast as the coach, for a number of reasons: the coaches post over-optimistic schedules which in my experience they can’t maintain, the motorway is straight, and is also shorter by quite a way. Why should that be? The railway was built long enough ago, and to what appears to have been a limited budget, so there are lots of twists and turns: these slow the speed, and add to the distance. But improvements are on the way: a cut off line is under construction on part of the route, and a new river crossing is almost complete.

The new route will be faster, it will add capacity – many more trains right now would cause operational problems – and it will cut several kilometres off the distance. But it could be bad news for the ancient town of Alcácer do Sal, which is bypassed by the cut off.

Crunch in the Soup

I had one of those determined interludes last night: this was to do with food, more specifically eating out. After returning from Entroncamento into Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia station, and walking from there back towards the Praça do Comércio, I passed by a number of eateries. None was particularly expensive, which made them all the more interesting. And then I saw a menu outside a little cantinha that advertised both grilled dourada, and Alentejo style soup.

It wasn’t a particularly challenging walk from the residencial, so that was that. Dourada, simply grilled and usually served with salad and proper potatoes (yes, real ones, not reconstituted chip style shapes), is a regular on the daily specials menu all over Lisbon. As it’s “real” fish, with head, tail and of course bones, a little more effort is required – but is worth it. The Alentejo soup was something else.

I remembered from years ago that it would be a little oily, which it was, and that there would be bread on top, and that was present, as was the egg underneath. What I’d forgotten over time was that the little flecks of crunchy grey material were fresh – and in this case good and strong – garlic. It was only a second or two for the memory bank to recharge, and a relief that I wasn’t expecting close contact with anyone later.

Going South

Tomorrow will be time to head south from Lisbon, across the Ponte 25 do Abril, and ultimately back to the old town of Albufeira. It’s been yet another sunny and pleasantly warm day, and yet another reminder that timing is all: had I made the visit a day earlier, I’d have been considerably wetter by now. And when it rains in Lisbon, you find out about it.

That is part of the difference between the Algarve and the more northern parts of Portugal: once you cross the Tagus from the south, everything becomes a little greener. That means wetter, and is no doubt another reason that Lisbon folk like to descend on the Algarve themselves once in a while.

There will be more from Zelo Street later in the week, then, all things being equal, it will be back to the UK. Where it will probably be even colder than when I left.

Oh well.

In A Museum

When British Rail, as it was then, made the decision to site the National Rail Museum over 180 miles out of London in York, there was an allegedly national outcry. I say allegedly, as much of the grumbling came from London based newspapers and those who found getting to Clapham (Remember that museum? Not very large, and not very cheap) easier and quicker.

The Portuguese approach was also to establish their national collection out of the capital. The museum has opened in the railway town of Entroncamento, which is the country’s equivalent of Crewe, Derby and York in one: the national network, even at its zenith, was far smaller than that in the UK. Whether the assembled hacks based in cities like Lisbon and Porto were outraged I don’t know, but in both cases, the trip to the museum can be easily made by rail – which is supposed to be the point.

Unlike the UK, a charge is levied, but two Euro is hardly an onerous amount. There is a modern roundhouse display – the original one that stood on the site was demolished many years ago – and many photos and models of trains past and present. Sadly, not many takers visited today: it’s no surprise, therefore, that opening hours extend only from 1400 to 1730 hours. Also, be warned that it’s closed on Mondays.

One promising prospect is that there are plans to extend the museum into an adjacent and much larger building, which might give it the “must visit” factor and thereby bring in the punters. It’s certainly worth the effort, and the staff are very helpful. From Lisbon there is a more or less hourly Regional service that serves Entroncamento, and at a return fare of 13.5 Euro it’s not expensive.

Your Money? It’ll Still Cost You

ATMs – those hole in the wall machines that give you access to cash all day and every day – are now a part of everyday life. What the world was like before their coming is for many unknown, or a fading memory, which latter is a good thing: not so long ago, if you came up short out of banking hours, you were stuffed.

But not all has been plain sailing with ATMs in the UK. There were for many years networks that only yielded cash if you were a customer of a particular bank or building society. Then there were networks that worked more flexibly, but you still had to be a member of a particular “club” of banks.

Here in Portugal, the ATM appeared rather later than in many countries, and with one important benefit: they all sit on the same network, and all behave in an identical way: they are called Multibanco machines. This is a big plus for those like me that like the country, but have difficulty figuring out the language – well, at the kind of speed that isn’t going to cause annoyance to the rest of the queue.

Yes, a Multibanco ATM will talk to you, reassuringly, in English. There is also a standard series of animated characters to help pass the time while one country’s network talks to another, to make sure your credit is good.

On The Tiles

This evening I have arrived in Lisbon. And it’s been raining – heavily enough to have disrupted transport links further north. This means that special care is needed on the streets, especially those with the unique tiled surface so characteristic of Portugal. Why so? Because when it rains, those little tiles become, as Neil Kinnock once said, absolutely bloody lethal.

Even in the dry, the tiles have a tendency to become shiny and slippery. When it rains, they don’t shine, but merely reflect. They are yet more lethal. So when I came out into the open at the eastern exit from Baixa-Chiado Metro this evening, the downhill slope of traditionally tiled pavement told me to beware.

And here I am at the residencial – that’s the Duas Nações, at the intersection of Augusta and Vitoria. In one piece. Even after a very agreeable feed and drink session at Casa Liège earlier. For those not familiar with the area, that’s the eatery at the top of the Bica funicular, east side. You can manage a good meal with wine for less than ten Euro a head.

But not a slip ‘twixt cup and lip, mind.

Of Course They Speak English

We British can lay claim to one distinction that mainland Europeans cannot (and probably don’t want to), and that is our laziness in bothering to learn even a few words of any other language. I can’t claim to be much different from the crowd on this one, although I generally manage rather more than those holidaymakers who are frightened to leave the confines of area where they can be guaranteed the comfort of English speaking guides, hotel staff and shop assistants.

But then there is a flip side to this problem, which provides a powerful disincentive to make the effort: so many in other European countries speak English, and will use it whenever they encounter English people, that you might as well not bother. This was something I first came across way back in the mid 70s in Vienna: I’d rehearsed my best German (admittedly not very good German) only to find that the reply came back in English. Then, it was in a touristy area, but now it happens just about everywhere.

So no wary Brit should feel uncomfortable about walking into a supermarket in even the less Anglophone parts of Portugal – or buying tickets for the bus or train (the literature invariably comes with an English translation), although some will use the alleged difficulty as an excuse for heading to the car rental office. Where, once again, English is spoken as by default. It’s the proof, if it were needed, that our language is now all pervasive across the EU. English is the de facto first language in Europe.

This fact is generally not mentioned by the more screamingly anti-EU politicians and pundits. But neither is it disputed.

Closed for the Holidays

The number of restaurants closing for “the holidays” – or in a few cases, closing never to reopen – in the old town of Albufeira grows daily. But a close inspection shows that many will reopen next month. To be opening your doors when the days are at their shortest, and the climate less amenable, looks on the face of it to be a perverse move. But this fails to take into account the holiday habits of the Portuguese.

Christmas and New Year are a season in themselves for those from further north, as they look to take a break in the least cold and rainy part of their country. What at other times of the year is merely a weekend thing – travelling south on Friday afternoon and returning late Sunday – becomes a migration. Trains “sell out”, even with more capacity put on (you aren’t allowed to turn up and go without there being a seat available), in both classes, throughout the period. I suspect that coaches operated by Eva, Rede Expressos and Renex will be similarly in demand.

So it makes sense for businesses to take advantage of the influx, especially as the numbers coming from the UK and other northern European countries seem less reliable – or those Brits that have settled here find the exchange rate nudging them towards a rediscovery of cooking dinner, and making their own sarnies for lunch. Those that can afford to kick back for the whole of the holiday period can usually be relied upon to eat out occasionally.

Then, almost as soon as the New Year celebrations have died down, the move back north starts in earnest: the size of the early afternoon Intercidade from Faro on the first day of January is constrained only by the number of coaches that can be rustled up, and the weight limit imposed on anything using the rail deck of the Ponte 25 do Abril crossing the Tagus back into Lisbon. There are never any last minute seats available.

So what happens to all those reopened eateries? That I haven’t yet discovered, but suspect that there will be a further “holiday” closure for many, until the following March brings more daylight, more northern Europeans, and the next temporary migration comes with the arrival of Easter.

Friends Like These

With public reaction to the Sun hatchet job on Pa Broon not turning out as Rupe and his troops had expected, it seems that the Tories are trying to distance themselves from their new best friends: Dame Pauline Neville Jones has gone on the Beeb’s Question Time to comment adversely on the behaviour of the Murdoch attack dogs. Problem is, they can hardly intervene in Sun editorial policy, and it would require a higher level of diplomatic skill than Young Dave possesses to tell Rupe that, if that’s the kind of support he can expect, he’d rather not have it at all.

Thus Brown has come out of this rather well, although he would not have volunteered to be put through the mangle in this way. Making his demeanour yet more sunny, a rare thing nowadays, has been the comfortable Labour win in the Glasgow North East by-election, made necessary by the stepping down of former Speaker Michael Martin. Speculation on a shock defeat has long disappeared, and even the thought that the majority would dip below four thousand was wide of the mark: it was twice that amount.

There has already been much predictable reaction: Tory supporters brushing off the result as another of those “non stories” – for which read “stories that bring news we don’t want to hear” – and the SNP wondering what might have been. As if. Next will be the froth merchants spreading the “postal ballot fraud” drivel that they sent round after the last Labour by-election win.

Now all eyes will be on the next few weeks’ opinion polls: if there is significant movement away from the Tories and towards Labour, expect Young Dave and his team to start worrying about what the next Sun entry into the world of knocking copy will bring. Of course, he could tell his new friends at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun about all his plans for Government. The problem there is, first, he needs to actually have some, and second, that gives Big Al and Baron Mandelson of Indeterminate Guacamole the chance to rubbish them (no encouragement needed there).

But if Dave doesn’t help the Sun fill its pages, he risks the potential backfiring of their next batch of knocking copy. Decisions, decisions.

End Of Another Line

Weekends are sometimes difficult for getting around in the Algarve – unless, of course, you join the herd and drive. Then you face the problem of finding a parking space at a reasonable price – more often than not, parking means paying – unless you’re headed for one of the many out of town shopping experiences.

So today I had to mix and match the transport modes to be able to have a day in the western Algarve town of Lagos. Here the pros and cons of the competitors can be summed up: the bus station in Albufeira has a pleasant concourse, there are toilet facilities (free), but the ticket office has not yet progressed beyond cash transactions. At the railway station, there is a small waiting area, the toilets are generally locked (50 cents for a loan of the key), but both the ticket office and automatic machine will take debit and credit cards.

The train was well filled, with most punters headed for Portimão, a town that now stretches from its old centre inland all the way to the sea. Here and at Lagos the stations are staffed and tidy: most other wayside stops are neither. At the latter, arrival was actually a little late, but nothing on the scale that Senhora Eva manages whenever it’s busy, or when they advertise unachievable timings, as I mentioned the other day.

Lagos has, in fact, recently got a brand new station, but why this was necessary is a mystery. The old one is still there, just behind its successor, and the nicely proportioned red tiled terminus is starting to fall into disrepair. The bar that was opened on the ground floor has closed, the inevitable graffiti has started to appear, and the area at front is now being used by folks sleeping rough.

Which, after a pleasant few hours walking the promenade opposite the marina and taking the obligatory photos, brings me via the Sunday afternoon Transrapido, back to the shiny new bus station at Albufeira. Look beyond the area where buses lay over, and there is a jumble of makeshift dwellings, a mixture of wooden board, corrugated sheet, and tenting. Here are the people who have not made it, or have fallen out of luck. We have similarly unfortunate folks in the UK: merely because the glossy brochures fail to mention them does not mean that they do not exist elsewhere.

No News is No News

Away from home, not constantly connected to the Internet, so am I missing all the happenings in the print media? The question occurs whenever I have the chance to stop by a paper shop, which I did earlier today. It showed that I need not worry about being left behind.

The why-oh-why tabloids were on a health trip: the Daily Mail was considering the plight of what it calls the “Baby Boomer” generation, the currently over 60s, and how so many of them may be blighted by bad diet and lack of exercise. This rather obvious conclusion could be related to the age of the Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor, Paul Dacre, who has just turned, er, 60.

The Daily Express, demonstrating that sacking lots of hacks makes your paper into a pisspoor shadow of its former self, leads on the assertion that you can consume more calories than recommended. Hein, rien de merde, M. Holmes! Of course you can – but you’ll get fat (see Daily Mail). Anyone still unsure why the Express is shipping readers should look no further – and ideally read something better, which should not prove too taxing.

The red tops are in minor sleb mode: apparently the supposedly challenging I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here is back, which is a good reason to avoid ITV for the duration. So there is wall to wall coverage of this year’s trawl of the attention seeking and otherwise desperate, which, fortunately for the tabs, includes one Katie Price, aka Jordan, recently parted from the equally vacuous Peter André, and the excuse for plenty of chest shots and boob jokes. Phwhorr!

I’m A Celebrity will presumably be once again brought to the target audience along with Ant and Dec. Which one is which? I’m with the Klingons on this: it’s not important – kill them both. How else to liven up the format?

So is that all? You jest. The X Factor is still going, with the repulsive Simon Cowell snarling all the way to the bank. Who will win? Should I care? There’s more to life than sleb gazing and crummy “talent” shows: for starters, I have to decide where to eat this evening (the choice is good, even with several eateries closed for winter), and need to find the bus station in Lagos tomorrow, as I’ll have to return with Senhora Eva on the allegedly Transrapido. Hopefully this will be better than the similarly branded trip to Faro yesterday, which pitched up at the bus terminal there just quarter of an hour late.

Given the nature of rush hour traffic in that part of the world, I doubt that Simon Cowell’s advocacy and Jordan’s chest could have improved things.

Picture Imperfect

The variety of posts about places in and around the Algarve and Lisbon have, I’m sorry to confirm, contained no photo links – so far. Access to the Web has been sporadic, for a variety of reasons, some of which have to do with lack of time, which in turn is driven by a requirement to sample the local hospitality and relax of an evening.

The photos are being taken, and barring an unfortunate relapse of the episode whereby I was relieved of my LumpCam (tm) somewhere between Schiphol and Liverpool, there will be new content on my Fotopic site as soon as I’ve got back, and cleared the backlog. Another post will follow at the time, loaded with hyperlinks and any more information I may choose to deploy in order to point readers in the desired direction.

An Enigmatic Man

The rebuilding of central Lisbon after the great earthquake and tsunami of 1755 would not have happened without the advocacy of one man, the Marques de Pombal, who by all accounts was more brutal and dictatorial than Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

He got the job done. The city’s central Baixa district is, more or less, as he decreed, with a grid pattern of streets, central to the scheme being the north-south pedestrian axis, the Rua Augusta. Lisbon does not forget his endeavours: a statue of the man on horseback overlooks the Rotunda between the top of the Avenida da Liberdade and the Parque Eduardo VII (that’s the British Edward the Seventh). Just to keep visitors confused, the Metro station there was initially called Rotunda, after the roundabout, but is now called Marques de Pombal, after its statue.

The Marques also founded a new town at the eastern end of the Portuguese Algarve, next to the Guadiana river, which marks the border with Spain. Vila Real de Santo Antonio is now an established and growing settlement with the obligatory complement of expat Brits, but this was not always so. The area was predominantly marshland, so there was no farming, and no port. Consequently there were few takers.

As so often, the arrival of the railway made a difference, and now there is less marshland, plus a port. Nearby Monte Gordo is a recent addition to the list of familiar Algarve resorts. The pleasant town centre features a square bearing the name of its founder: around its edge are orange trees, and behind those on each side are similarly styled whitewashed buildings with red tiled roofs. The Marques might have approved of the symmetry and order.

Unfortunately, the railway that helped to bring the rest of the world to Vila Real de Santo Antonio does not fully appreciate the utility of the place: the station is out of the centre in the “zona industrial”, while the former terminus station by the Guadiana, which is next to the bus and coach park, and adjacent to the ferry landing, lies derelict, home only to a number of mobile caravans. At least, unlike so often at home, there is still a chance that the trains could return, as there has been no haste to build over the site.

Not only in the UK have transport planners repented at leisure.

On The Road Once More

Yesterday, more out of curiosity than desire, I took a coach trip for the first time in several years. After all, the adverts displayed a headline time from Albufeira to Lisbon of just two hours 40 minutes, faster than the train. Which doesn’t serve the centre of Albufeira. So I booked at the Eva office in the new bus station, and turned up for the 0920 coach from outside the bus shop in the old town.

The coach, displaying the kind of timekeeping that I remember all too well in the UK, left quarter of an hour late and lost another quarter of an hour en route, which meant that I had to be quick with my photos and the odd bit of “must do” sightseeing: this was eventually restricted to a ride on the 28 tram through Graça, and a trip up the Santa Justa Tower before sunset.

At least on the way back, the coach was “only” twelve minutes off arriving back in Albufeira, but it’s not good enough. If a time of two hours 40 isn’t achievable, it shouldn’t be advertised. Nor were the coaches especially busy: there was room for all on board to “spread out”, with no more than twenty takers each trip. But the journey was informative in another way.

The A2 motorway, which connects Lisbon with the Algarve, has been driven through the hills of the southern Alentejo by carving out a lot of cuttings and building many more bridges. This makes it straighter and shorter than the rail route, and must have cost more even than Jeremy Clarkson’s taxes. But it is also a toll road, which may partly explain the lack of traffic. This is what motorways in the UK were like decades ago: at one point, the opposite carriageway had two of its three lanes closed for maintenance, with no delays caused.

Hence my contention that the advertised coach timing was not achievable: on the return journey, there was a couple of minutes’ delay through slow traffic. But, once out on the toll road, there is nothing to slow the coaches. There is, however, a desire to capture market share and make money.

Thus the headline timing.

Like Topsy

Back in the late 90s, there was one place to catch your bus in Albufeira: not far from the centre of the old town, at the south end of the Avenida da Liberdade. It was a little shambolic, and there was little cover from the elements. So now there is a brand new bus station, but it’s at the back of town.

At first, I thought that this site was at the edge of the urban sprawl, but was proved wrong when a journey out of town today demonstrated that the development has carried on, and has reached further inland. The lines of upmarket villas and blocks of apartments go on until you’re two or three miles from the coast.

The building, however, shows little sign of continuing right now. The severity of the downturn may not be as severe as in neighbouring Spain, but then, it may not have worked through the system yet. There are a lot of properties on the market, and many of those are having the asking price reduced.

Moreover, estate agents specialising in “distress sales” are in town. This suggests that repossessions are happening. One would hope that it isn’t the expat Brits that have been daft enough to enter this market at the wrong time, but that hope may be in vain.

Hello, I’m On The Road

Some in the UK still use hand held mobile phones while driving – despite it being outlawed – although the number is dwindling, and each instance of a driver having an accident while being distracted by a mobile serves as reinforcement. Once again, here is a practice that is treated differently across the EU.

The news that hand held mobiles equals distraction (and thereby equals potentially nasty accidents) has not yet taken hold in Portugal. If I was in any doubt about the practice being widespread, this was dispelled by the driver of an Eva bus last weekend: the route and time not advertised, in case the management are looking in.

Since that moment, I’ve been aware of drivers of variously sized commercial vehicles casually using hand held mobiles while negotiating the trickiest of roads, and the routinely heavy weekday traffic. Maybe there isn’t a penalty for doing so – yet. It’s not the most significant detail, but it demonstrates once again that the EU is not one homogenous state.