Although, come to think of it, we did manage three nights in a row last weekend, with a hash between nights two and three, so we're not completely past it yet. Then again, we knew last week was a mere three days long because of May Day, so there'd be light at the end of the tunnel.

The LNBOE does, occasionally, open on other nights of the week, but only when there is a holiday the next day. We tend to forget all about that little twist until we're walking past it on our way home and "Hey-- it's open! Maybe we can stop for just a quick one."

As if that were even possible.

Which explains why we never made it to Spain on Thursday. We were planning to head for the coast, which is a long, long drive from here, and it seems even longer when you've been hanging out at the LNBOE for, well, let's just say it was more than one. Elvis isn't a terribly cheerful traveller at the best of times, and even though I was feeling fine and in a good mood, I knew that it wouldn't last long if I were to travel with a tired, hungover and very cranky Elvis. So I did the sensible thing and let him sleep until noon, and we went back to Lagos.

It was a good call. We'd missed the heavy holiday traffic at that point, I called the hotel where we stayed the last time on our way down, and we were all checked in and in our room three hours after leaving home. We even found the hotel on the first try, which doesn't sound impressive until you realize that the old town of Lagos is a tangled web of narrow one way streets and pedestrian zones, plus we didn't have the handy little map that the guy had given us last time when we decided to go fetch the car instead of hauling our bags across town after we'd checked out. Actually, I thought I did bring that map, but I never did find it so I suppose not.

Lagos was fun. We hadn't been there an hour before we started running into people we knew. Not only had we met them before, but they even remembered us and knew who we were. It's always nice to have that warm, fuzzy sense of belonging somewhere.

It was much warmer this time. We did the hike along the cliffs again, then took the long stairs down to the beach at Camila, which is gorgeous. Elvis hurt his knee along the final part of the trail, which wasn't so nifty. The trail joins the steps about half way down, so he rested there while I climbed up the steps to the rather ratty caf� up top and bought us some sodas and water for the beach. It was definitely worth it.

We had planned to go to the Meia Praia on Saturday. It's a long beach-- about 4 km-- close to the old town. There's a new marina there, and you can take a very short (under a minute, apparently) ferry ride to get there so you don't need to walk all the way around the marina. We hadn't made it there the last time, since it was rather cold, and we didn't make it this time either because Elvis started feeling sick. We went out for dinner, where we were served an incredibly rich fish soup and a pair of soles that together would have served a family of five (possibly six) that we had no chance whatsoever of finishing, even if Elvis had been feeling well. It was a shame, really, because they were beautiful fish. Elvis saw a woman in the kitchen deboning all the fish we had left, no doubt destined for someone else's fish soup. At least it didn't go to waste, although if they were that big they really should have warned us so that we could share one.

After that, in a town full of bars and nightlife and new found friends, we went back to the hotel. It was around 10:00, I believe, but Elvis was running a fever by this point and was not terribly happy. We figured we could make an early start on the beach.

Saturday was a glorious day, warm and clear with an intensely blue sky, but we didn't go to the beach. Elvis didn't want to stray too far from a toilet, preferable one with a seat. So we wandered around the shops and ate lunch on one of the esplanades and generally had a relaxed sort of day. By that evening, Elvis was back to feeling like his old self, so we were able to go out. Still, we didn't overdo it, which was good.

Sunday didn't look so hot. In fact it was dark and overcast and threatening rain, so Meia Praia was out that day, too. Instead we went to Luz, which is about 15 minutes down the coast. Luz is a family resort, and is loaded with villas and holiday apartments. Few or no high rises, though, which is good. (If you watch EastEnders, it's the sort of place they tried to pass off as Estoril during all that "what did Phil really do to Lisa" palaver. Judging from the cliffs Phil didn't dump Lisa off of, I'd say they filmed it in the same general stretch of coast, although all I'm certain of is that it WAS filmed in the Algarve, and not up by where I live. Someday I'll get around to checking. Or not. But I digress.)

Incredibly, Luz had some sunshine, which made us regret our wardrobe choices, although it still looked pretty gloomy over Lagos way. We sat on the esplanade by the beach drinking coffee and reading the papers, and watched the families playing on the very lovely beach and swimming in the very inviting surf, and me kicking myself for not being more optimistic and throwing on a swimsuit under my clothes. Then we had a pub lunch and watched the end of the Formula 1 race (because it was on) before heading home.

It took us four hours to get back, mainly because we spent 45 minutes sitting in a tailback trying to cross the 25 de Abril bridge into Lisbon. There's no toll going out of Lisbon, but there is to get back in, which is no fun whatsoever, and traffic was jammed all the way to the Sesimbra exit, which is something like 25 km. Luckily, they have the lanes marked out with raised yellow plastic to funnel the cars down to three lanes for the bridge once you've paid your toll, so it wasn't complete chaos on the other side off the toll booths. It was slow, but not as slow going as on the other side. Other than that, traffic moved along pretty well.

We got home to find that we'd forgotten to empty the trash before we left, although any resultant smell was amply covered up by something unspeakable foul that Calliope had just deposited in the bathroom, although it was pervasive enough that we checked out the entire apartment to make sure she wasn't trying to send us any messages.

How anything that cute and small can produce something so strongly vile is beyond me. Of course, she then went into full theatrics about how starving she was and why don't you give me something to eat Right Now, despite a very large pile of evidence to the contrary. It's amazing, really.