Alte

I was greeted on what felt like the only road into or out of Alte by a massive Portuguese flag attached to the rocky cliff walls. Think it was put there for the World Cup or the Euros which of course Portugal won.

Alte is a small village in the Algarve that feels a world away from the tourist resorts of Albufeira or Portimão.
It's the sort of place that the Portuguese locals go to for a day trip and it's beautiful, quaint and relatively unspolit.

The building on the left is a museum type building and looks pretty new. The older building beside it look like they could do with some attention. There's a lot of rough edges in Alte.

Apparently this is the sort of place where young people have had to leave in order to find work. They oftne return in later years and buy little houses and put these little grandma & grandpa firgures on them.
I want to say they were called grandparents houses but I've forgotten the correct Portuguese words.

I found Alte hard to capture in a photograph. Everything is white and all the streets are weird angles. It's hard to have a focal point in a photo because I found it hard to have a focal point standing in the streets.
The streets have an atmosphere which I found difficult to retain in my images.

In the middle of the village there is the church Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Assunção
"Church of Our Lady of the Assumption".
There's an entrance fee of a couple of Euros, via a side door and a dark curtain.
It's worth the visit as it's an interesting place. Full of old tradition tiling and an impressive altar.

There's not a lot of entertainments on offer in Alte but there are few food places and some cafes.
One is like a rabbit warren that joins onto a ceramic and pottery shop.

I went up one street that I found interesting to look at.
There was a curious looking building.
I took this photo of it and then suddenly a little old man appeared from somewhere, opened the door to the place and invited me to go in.

I did, it looked interesting.
Then I found myself in a pitch black room and suddenly thought I'd walked into some sort of tourist dungeon like in the movie Hostel.
The little old guy switched the light on and the room was full of stuff joined on to another room full of stuff. all old stuff.
Old household things, like irons and kettles and acouple of old motorcycles.

What was this place?
Is it a museum a shop or his front room.
There was an upstairs too which he was pointing me to go up to.
I declined.

There's a spring that runs a channel down through the village, there are a few picturesque little spots to sit by the water and watch the world go by.
and watch the flamboyant ducks going about their business.

Hidden around little corners there are murals and on top of doorways there are painted tiles.
There are some shops in the village that have big murals painted on them.
Quite a lot of them featuring religious imagry. In the coastal towns they feature sailing ships and explorers setting out to discover the world.

Alte was one of my favourite places in the Algarve.
English isn't widely spoken here which I loved.
It's a real place, an honest place.
Slightly rough around the edges and in need of a bit of TLC in places but a lovely place to visit or even to go and stay and relax in.