Portugal: Full circle in the Algarve

We returned to Lagos only to discover that Nazaré experienced some massive waves on the weekend immediately after we left.  I guess it might be necessary to block off some time to make the trip up there next fall when we know there are big swells coming.

I spent the week after we returned watching the "100 ft wave" series on TV during breaks before and after work.  The series does a good job of capturing the personalities of the regulars at these events and how their journeys evolved from the early days of experimentation with the huge waves there, up to last year.

Back in Lagos we had some business to attend to.  We have to open a bank account which involves a few steps that we had prepared for based on several Facebook groups for expats moving to Portugal.  The steps are probably quite a bit more intense for non-EU residents but it was interesting to participate in the generating of many pages of documents that we had to sign.  We also had to produce utility/account statements that prove our residence in the USA.  Fortunately we still have some utilities that send us bills that we could use for this.

In Portugal (and maybe all of the EU) banks make no bones about making money off you.  In the USA bank accounts charge minimum or no fees for the account itself - making money from having your money rather than making you pay for the privilege.  In Portugal you pay around 5-7 Euros every month for the account with extra fees if you want a credit card or a second debit card.

We will have to make provision to transfer money into this account regularly because this will be used to pay for the utilities for the house once we have the deed.

In the map above, the heart shows the location of our new house.  It is in a small hamlet between Silves and a town called São Bartholomeu de Messines, almost exactly half-way between Faro and the west coast and a few minutes drive from the main rail-line between Lisbon and Faro.  The closest beach is a 30min drive on backroads directly south in Albufeira.  Silves (pronounced Seelvsh - and rhymes with "peel") is 15min drive away.

The process to buy the house is moving along - we have paid the deposit and the promissory note has been signed which puts both parties into a contract whereby we'll have to pay a considerable penalty if either of us renege on the deal.  We would lose our deposit or the seller would have to pay us double the deposit depending on who pulls out of the contract.  The actual signing of the deed (closing) will be left to a lawyer who will wait for an inspection by the realtor of the property (with photo and video sent to us for review) and she will keep the keys for us for when we return.

During the wait for the promissory to be signed I reached out to our attorney to find out what the proper address was for our new home.  We had become aware of a problem with mail and deliveries in Portugal because there are often houses and streets that are not named and google maps is not reliable.  In some cases the numbering convention for the street has changed in the last couple of years from one format to another and so you might end up at a location that has a wildly different street number from what you entered in the search.

So you can imagine my confusion when I entered our new address and google maps confidently highlighted a different location than the one we had visited and was listed on the realtor's web site.

After an email exchange with our attorney we understood that the postal code/address we had been given corresponded to the whole hamlet which has a collection of post boxes at the main intersection in its middle.

The house that google reported belonged to the postal code has a custom listing in google maps - probably put there by the current owner, and which includes a phone number.  My guess is that they rent it out to visitors every now and again and wanted to help them with directions.

So I phoned the number.  

Their names were pretty clearly English and after introducing myself, we had a brief and friendly conversation.  I asked him what the probability was that we were buying their house instead of the one listed by the realtor which got us both laughing about street addresses and maps.  After we'd chatted a bit about the new house, which he knows well, he said:  "So you have a South African accent?" and I said, "Yes and you sound like you are from England?" which brought back an immediate: "No man, Durban!"  I suppose the Natal accent is the closest to what they call received pronunciation in South Africa but I was a little disappointed that I didn't pick it up right away.  He immediately invited us to stop by anytime we like to say "hi" and we'll be doing that when we move in properly.

It is not unusual to come across South Africans here.  He has lived here since 1986 which was long before we even imagined we might go off as travelers to distant countries for work and then for retirement.  If you search for the Algarve on YouTube you will come across a South African (Nick Robinson) who has lived here for a couple of decades and fills his episodes by describing places and processes related to moving and living in the Algarve.  His channel is called Algarve Addicts.

So our next hurdle is to get a visa for residence which we will have to apply for as soon as we get back to Boston next week.  Anne will apply for the non-lucrative retirement visa and once she has it we will start working on a reunification visa for me to join her.  We might have to juggle with how much time we spend in Portugal.  Once Anne has her residential visa she has to spend a few days more than six months in Portugal every year.  Until I have a residence visa I can't spend more than 90 days in every six month period.   There is a chance that my visa will be processed before this presents a problem for us.

So after a total of 6 months in Portugal we returned to some of the scenery near Lagos on a walk to Ponta da Piedade - a headland with amazing rock formations formed by the relatively soft sandstone being eroded by waves and collapsed walls.

Since our first visit in April 2022 there have been additional wooden boardwalks constructed to try to discourage walking on footpaths really close to the potentially treacherous cliff edges.

 

There are a few locations along the coast near Lagos between Albufeira and Luz where tour companies bring tourists in boats and on kayaks to explore the inlets and caves in the cliffs.

 

A nice scenic end to our second long stay in Portugal and completing a loop in the Algarve with another series of photographs of those impressive cliffs.