Lagos, Portgual, Surf Trip

Having attempted surfing on a number of occasions in the west of Ireland, my associates Ivan and Lee convinced me to go to Portugal and have a few days surfing as compensation for us being unable to coordinate a ski trip this year.  

Lagos, Portugal was where we stayed and with Filsurf (www.filsurf.com) we booked a couple of days surfing. I must say it worked out well, after trying a couple of locations on the south coast, and then one on the west coast on Wednesday we concluded that conditions were not suitable for us, and it would be better based on the weather reports to try Thursday and Saturday. Praia de Cordoama was where we chose to dip our toes into the water. The instructor was excellent with his guidance, personally, I struggled on Thursday, too many bad habits, the instructor was very patient with me but had a much better Saturday.

Our bodies felt the effects on Friday, and a walk 5km about along the cliffs emphasized this.
Overall it was a great trip and reasonably priced. It was a good time of the year not too busy and nice weather, the resort had a real calm before the summer storm, feel with everyone we met in good form. I would recommend it and eagerly go again.


First time in Portugal so add it to the map.


visited 24 states (10.6%)

Ski Amade, Alpendorf and Flachau

My annual ski trip, this year again with the Specker Gang, and for the 5th time in Ski Amade. A great trip as usual, good skiing, good friends, good laughs, sing songs, bit of a walk, a jog, games of cards and schock dice the normal bag of tricks. I skied with Mark, we had 5 days of excellent conditions and one leisurely snow day. Three of the days were vigourous, one day we skied over to Flachau via the G-Link and did many good runs, two of the days were more pedestrian with coffee and hot chocolate breaks, and socialising with others on the trip. The day over in Flachau, we were down in the valley when a storm hit, so we hand lunch, the storm cleared the resort, the group had headed back to the hotel so we went to ski back to base, by the time we got back up to the top we were above the cloud and missed, champagne skiing we skiied back with empty runs, new powder covered runs, no lift queues (no one to crash into) so we took perhaps too much advantage of it, missed the late bus back to our hotel, but managed to cajole another bus going near it to drop us off(one of the best ski days ever). I was happy my recently broken and repaired foot held up (a skiboot is very like a cast anyways), the rest of my body perhaps feels the aches and pains a lot still, but well earned. I did have three falls, one due to an uncontrolled beginner clipping my skis, the two others were due to my messing so perhaps karma! but no damage done although my salopettes have seen better days.
As ever it was well organised by Dave and co, and thanks to Siegi Tours, and the Hotel Post for looking after us all.