Week 21 & 22 - The Western Algarve

Earlier in the year we received an e-mail from pals’ Ann and John that they would be spending several months at Touriscampo on the western end of the Algarve near Lagos, near a favourite site of ours, Quinta Manjericao, run by young Brits Darren & Sian it is as close to a UK C&CC CS as it’s possible to get, just 8 miles from Turiscampo and less than half the price. We rang Darren to check there was a pitch available and was sad to learn that the site had, for an undisclosed reason, been closed by the local authority and there was no indication when or if it would ever be reopened.

Oh well! We booked (and paid in advance) for a two week stay at Touriscampo and then learned that Ann and John had relocated to the other end of the Algarve - DOH!!!

Turiscampo is one of, if not the, most popular sites in Portugal, the facilities are all first class and there are a large number of visitors who return, often to the same pitch year after year. For John it was too far from his favourite golf course and by moving just 100 km eastwards was saving over £1000.00 in pitch fees. Not a sum to be sniffed at as it represents around 500 bottles of wine or 1000 bottles of beer or 100 meals out or, if you wanted to be really sad 125 visits to the Intermarche laundromat.

We took the opportunity to  have another look around the south-west corner of Portugal as it is some while since we had spent time there. It was as pleasant as we remembered it.

From Touriscampo we had intended to travel west to Camping Ria Formosa, where Ann and John had relocated, IF they had a pitch available as apparently, they can only offer you a pitch if they happen to have one available when you arrive. This Portuguese campsite, run by its Portuguese owners have entered into some sort of contract with the Camping and Caravanning Club so that (for Brit’s) pitches can only be booked through that club. OK we are members of that club so that should not be a problem but only if your ferry passages out and back were booked through that club. If you booked through the other main UK club or like us booked direct with the ferry company there is a £75 booking fee so for us for a one week booking would have been 170.00 euros around £95 plus £75 booking fee - yea! we’re gonna pay that - NOT!!!

We had a very pleasant couple of weeks at Touristcampo and even managed to get across to the Eastern Algarve to see Ann and John.

© S W Ghost 2018