![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC02302-The-view-south-from-F\u00f3ia.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
We continued driving until we reached the highest point at F\u00f3ia which was dominated by a number of communications towers, a couple of coaches full of tourists and the obligatory gift shop. Luckily for all of us it was a fairly clear day, so we could see right across the Algarve to the south and to the west coasts.<\/p>\n
On the way back down to Monchique we chose the O Luar Da F\u00f3ia Restaurante for our anniversary lunch and had an absolutely wonderful meal.\u00a0 For starters we had plates of black pork ham, cheese sprinkled with herbs and oil, marinated carrots and olives with bread.\u00a0 My main course was a churasco style kebab of juicy lamb served with an enormous plate of chips and a casserole dish full of salad.\u00a0 Rodney chose Monchique barbecued black pork which was diced and cooked in garlic with a side of chips and salad.\u00a0 Both dishes were so good, but so large that neither of us could finish our meals.\u00a0 Though somehow, I managed to squeeze down one of the best chocolate mousses I have ever had and we thanked the chef on the way out.\u00a0 I\u2019d go back again tomorrow if we were going to be up in the hills again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m sure Jacques Cousteau was alive and sitting at the next table, it turned out he was French and from somewhere north of La Rochelle; it obviously wasn\u2019t Jacques.\u00a0 So far on this trip we\u2019ve spotted Judi Dench at one of the campsites, met Johnny Depp in Madrid, spotted Philip Seymour Hoffman alive in Lagos, sat near Heidi Klum in a caf\u00e9 in Praia De Luz, and Geoff Wilson adjusting his campervan, not his BMW\u2026..\u00a0 Perhaps we\u2019ll spot a real star one day?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We have spotted some good chimneys as we\u2019ve travelled through the Algarve; they\u2019re really attractive and almost look like tiny lighthouses.\u00a0 I like them.<\/p>\n On our way back down to sea level, we noticed that a lot of the trees were cork trees, with their trunks stripped and black and their branches still a pale silver colour.\u00a0 We stopped to take a closer look at some and Rodney returned to the car with a gift of four oranges from a tree nearby.\u00a0 His hands now smell of fresh citrus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Twenty-two\u00a0years married and still very much together; in the tiny space within Eileen, it\u2019s hard to be apart! At 11am Marmelete looked like it was still asleep.\u00a0 Rodney didn\u2019t want to wake anyone, so we drove on, ever upwards to Monchique.\u00a0 The road twisted left and right as we climbed higher and higher past acres […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8328,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions\/8328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"](\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC02305-The-O-Luar-Da-F\u00f3ia-Restaurante.jpg\")
![\"Not](\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC02307-Not-sure-how-Santa-gets-down-the-chimneys-in-the-Algarve.........jpg\")
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC02309-Cork-tree-inspection.jpg\")