Our trip to Portugal was fantástico. We spent 4 days in the Algarve region of Portugal, which stretches along the southern coast. On most days, we spent half the day wandering and exploring the little towns and then spent the other half of the day eating lunch on the beach and reading, watching the waves, or just lying around. We carefully avoided the very crowded touristy beaches and found three different beaches that were very quiet and secluded (one we even had to ourself all day!), so it was really relaxing.

On our third day there, instead of spending our morning exploring, we spent it at Zoomarine, Algarve's Sea World-like park. Zoomarine itself wasn't that exciting, although we did get to see sharks and pet sea anenomes, but we weren't going for the sea lion show or the water slide, oh no. We were there for the dolphin interaction program that I had super-secretly signed Ben up for. He has always wanted to swim with dolphins, and he finally got his chance in Portugal. They had an informational session and then got to spend a while in the water playing with the dolphins. In Ben's words, "It was very very very cool".

Other than that, Portugal was absolutely beautiful, the weather was perfect, the food was great, our B&B was wonderful, the people were friendly, we were excited that they had BIG grocery stores and real shopping malls (don't laugh, Europe is really lacking in American style malls and we missed them a little), and we would love to go back. It was a nearly perfect vacation, and since there is not much else to say about it, I'll leave you with a billion pictures.

View from our room at the B&B



The beaches:
This is the first beach, Praia Camilo


Praia da Marinha, our secret private section of beach

Ben in the cave that led to our "private" beach

My belly is taking over the beach!

Praia Albandeira



Zoomarine:
Ben plays with the gators at Zoomarine

I play with sea anenomes!

Ben made a friend, Hamlet the dolphin

Hamlet does tricks!

Ben playing with Hamlet

Ben was very happy after swimming with dolphins



Albufeira

There was an escalator in Albufeira for all the people too lazy to walk from their car down the the beach. Nice.

Ben was very much amused by the escalator


Various pretty places:



Cabo de San Vicente, on the south-western tip of Portugal

Harbor at Sagres

Lagos


And, as I'm sure you can see, my belly continues to grow. Otis is doing well and getting big. I'm sure he would say hello to everyone if he could do anything other than roll around and kick me. And I've officially entered the third trimester, the home stretch, the three months of complaining about feeling huge and wanting the baby to get out soon. I'm willing to offer free room and board to anyone who wants to be my full-time masseuse. Anyone? Anyone at all? No? Fine. I'll just have to go to Paris and eat croissants to take my mind off it.