Carvoeiro and Lagos- Tues, Dec. 23

Taylor's dad rented a house in Carvoeiro, Portugal this year for Christmas. It was part Christmas and part family reunion. We haven't seen his brother Arty since last Christmas when they came here for Isaac's birth and since his brother is working in London and has an insane schedule (seriously works 100 hour weeks) and couldn't get away for long, the decision was made to meet him in Portugal. Carvoeiro is in the southern part so the weather was mostly in the 60's. No complaints here! For our first outing, we explored the little town of Carvoeiro and the coastline it sits on. We literally just picked a street, walked up to the top, and had this amazing view. We started to climb down for a closer view and discovered stairs carved into the cliffs.

It was beautiful climbing down looking out at the water and in at the little tide pools and then all the sudden a pirate ship appeared and sailed past us. Totally bizarre but Ethan loved it.
You can see Isaac is still suffering from jet-lag. Luckily one of our friends who served her mission in Portugal, advised us that all sidewalks and even most streets are cobblestone and thus would not be pleasant with a stroller so we found this nifty stroller/backpack carrier/highchair in one deal and it truly saved us. It was so easy just to fold up the stroller handle, whip out the straps, and throw it up on Taylor's back and off we went climbing down stairs and through cliffs.

Barb being a little more daring than the rest of us, Jeff (Taylor's dad), and Ethan (who spent the time finding rocks and shells to throw in the ocean instead of admiring the amazing scenery). What can we say, he's a 3 year old boy.

The whole gang (minus the late arrivals) L to R Ethan, Taylor (Isaac on back), Barb, Arty, Jeff

After we climbed up from the cliffs, we walked farther down and discovered this amazing little playground right on the water. That's my idea of a relaxing playgroup- swings, slide, merry-go-gound, fenced in, ocean breeze, sun beating down on me, ahhh!

After Carvoeiro we drove over to explore a little town called Lagos. (Ethan and Arty both suffering from jet-lag). The city was entirely made up of these tiny "walking" streets which were loads of fun to drive through with our 10 passenger van. As Taylor would say- they lose a lot of their charm when you're the one driving. Very entertaining to be a passenger though.

Everything is beautiful cobblestone as you can see and then most of the buildings are also stone with tiles all over them. I'll include close-ups on some later post but truly impressive. We had dinner there and were grateful to find that everyone spoke English (it's kind of the Florida of England, everyone comes in the summer to go to the beaches there).

And after dinner we walked out to find all the streets filled with these light decorations. Every street had different designs and it was very charming to walk under them. Just needed a little Nat King Cole in the background and maybe some colder temperatures or snow to complete the atmosphere.