Tourist season



The streets all run with gold, there’s work for young and old

It’s tourist season

Walking ‘round with backpacks, driving past with roof racks

The restaurants are bursting, patrons hot and thirsting

The bars are doing fine, guests sure like their wine

Rubbish lorries work all night, the bins are still a fright

Even cash machines say no, keep running out of dough

No housing for the poor, airBNB pays more

Market shelves are bare, after estrangeiros have been there

Hire cars block estradas, your driving speed is nada,

Their children scream and fuss, never get enough

They cover up the beach, with a towel each

Our hospital is filled with travelers taken ill

My dog barks at the gate, with strangers he’s irate

The French have certain wants, ate all of our croissants

Those from the German state, buy cerveja by the crate

As for the Swedes, Danish, and Dutch; it’s said they don’t buy much

Sausage over charcoal turns, 7000 hectare burns

In September it will end, we’ll have peace again

After tourist season

I love September.

Yes, looking forward to it as well.
I need to do a lot of tractoring; it's not even hot here at the moment, but the sun is like a death ray.

And maybe, who knows, just maybe it will rain. That would be a good thing.

Loved the poem, Liveaboard!

I thought TouristLand was host to hordes of tourists pretty much year round these days.

Last time I was in Tavira (October '22) it was chokka. The owner of one of the oldest restaurantes in town told us it was only a bit slack in January.

As my late FiL would say "Very good! - Now in Portuguese......!!"

Maclaim, feel free to translate it...

Here on the West coast, tourist season has been squeezing out into September and October (April and May too) but maybe at 50% or less than peak (July / August).

From November to March it's very peaceful here, it seems there's a rumor out that the weather is unpleasant then.
I'm not going to correct that.

Double edged sword.

The local businesses either want the money or the locals want the peace and quiet.

Unfortunately the season seems to be getting longer and noticed that even in the North East of Spain hotels are now extending season. Due to the heat in countries like Germany many are not focused on heat anymore and some politicians there are suggesting to make holidays more flexible. Autumn holidays are already until the first week of November and with an ageing population more and more pensioners will flock to Portugal in coming years etc. It's been a blessing here in Ireland and thankfully we had a lot of rain warnings, meaning families went abroad rather than doing day trips.

I'll give it a go...... but it won't rhyme much!

Época turística

Ruas cheias de ouro, faz emprego para os novos e os velhos
É a época dos turistas
Caminham por aí com mochilas, conduzem com barras de tejadilho
Os restaurantes inundados com clientes quem sentem calor e a morrer de sede
Os bares estão em grande forma - com certeza os clientes gostam do seu vinho
Os camiões do lixo trabalham toda a noite, mas os contentores continuam a assustar
Até os multibancos dizem "não", estão sempre a esgotar-se de massa
Não há casas para os pobres, a Airbnb paga mais
As prateleiras nos mercados estão vazias, depois dos estrangeiros passarem
Os carros alugados bloqueiam as estradas, a sua velocidade é zero,
As crianças gritam e chateiam, eles nunca têm sufficiente
A cobrir a praia, cada com uma toalha cada
O hospital está cheio de viajantes doentes
O meu cão ladra ao portão, porque os estrangeiros o irritam
Os franceses têm certos desejos, devoraram todos os croissants
Os alemães compram cerveja por caixas
Enquanto os suecos, os dinamarqueses e os holandeses, parece que eles não compram muito
Vira a salsicha no churrasco, 7000 hectares ardem
Em setembro acabará, teremos paz de novo
Depois da época turística

Or something like that........

Yeah, but you'll be getting rain tourism in Ireland soon enough.

I think the pensioners should stay away from Portugal - heat's not good for them, you know. Not even November heat.

I've heard Sweden's very nice in the autumn.

Clearly the Spanish head west for their holiday when their own peace and quiet is ruined by tourists from the north. The problem is that they drive like Lewis Hamilton and then park their cars and campers in all the wrong places. For some strange reason their eyes and feet are never going in the same direction so they are a menace on the footpaths too.

Ha! Ha! The more we come the more we will want to come and enjoy the peace, beauty and routine and see folks who recognise us and take up where we left off last time - the Portuguese that is, for the most part.

Looking forward to our October visit very much as it will be good and chilly here by then and October is usually a nice shoulder weather month on the Ria Formosa.

Eating out in the UK is now a joke price-wise - decent fish in particular - and drinking beer/wine is now prohibitive unless it is done at Wetherspoons which of course can be very iffy if you time it wrong.

We hold on knowing we can eat at our favourite joints in the Tavira/Fuseta area hopefully twice a year.

We only really eat out at lunch so we don't see the typical crush of evening drinkers and diners that you have referred to in Tavira outside of January.

Unless you get to the Cafe Bar 22 by the river very early in the evening you will never get a table or chair there even in January.

We are now trying a two-centre trip to Faro and Funchal - connecting directly via Lisbon on TAP (good and cheap if booked early) so we can get weather which can be typically more reliable heading towards late Autumn, if indeed there is such a thing in Madeira. We are 'connected' there too now mainly after a long stay 'stuck' there during covid and love that.

As a rum drinker, Madeira is the only place to go and drink local rum in Europe that I am aware of. Unless you try Bristol.

Can't really see the attraction of any other country vacation-wise now in my 'dotage' apart from (France) maybe Brittany and the Loire by ferry or maybe Easyjet to Nantes. Would like to try a beer-drinking seafood-eating trip to Belgium sometime but no rush.

HOWEVER, unless you plan your trip very carefully these days you can be hit by very heavy airfares to Faro due to school holidays, no matter what carrier.

We are Pensioners and have been living here since 2001 ... and this heat keeps me indoors with the a/c most of the day. We avoid tourists when possible,

We don't leave Portugal any more but I would love to go to Ireland where was Grandfather was born. I am Welsh.