n the 4th day of our holiday, we decided to stretch our muscles and set out to hike the Burgau Coastal Walk. This 10-kilometre trail runs along the cliffs between the towns of Luz and Salema, and is popular among English tourists and Algarvians alike. We started from a secluded beach in Salema following a paved hiking path. The trail soon changed into sandy footpaths almost hidden by shrubs and tall grasses, and sometimes we went off the trail to inspect low, abandoned houses which were left to the elements in this part of region. The view here was breathtaking – blue-sea dotted with occasional sail boats, cloudless sky and the famous limestone cliffs of West Algarve on the horizon, unobstructed by trees and extending as far as the eyes can see.

Stravaig: A Scottish word meaning to wander around, often for pleasure and frequently with no particular destination or aim in mind. This lovely definition taken from this blog.

I came across this word during an unforgettable dinner in a restaurant of the same name in Glasgow. I have not forgotten it since then nor have I forgotten haggis. Stravaig has become one of my favourite words while travelling, in the same way that Elizabeth Gilbert attached a great meaning to the Italian word attraversiamo.

In the summer 2010 I went to Italy for my birthday sojourn, a tradition I’ve started when I moved to the Netherlands. Wanting to escape crowded Venice, I stayed at Lido Island, about 15 minutes away by vaporetto (water bus). Much as I wanted to stay at the Grand Hotel de Bains, the famous setting of Death in Venice, my budget settled me instead in a rather dingy hotel called Vime Byron, located few meters away from the beach.

Ten years ago…

There was me and this guy, sitting on a beach, on a famous island. I’ve known him for two weeks.

There was a bottle of the local vodka. The sunset was romantic. A boat drifts away to the bay carrying two lovers.

I said to him: “I think I’m falling in-love with you.”

Silence.

After a while, he answered. “I thought you never want to be in a serious relationship.”

“Yes, I don’t.”

Silence.

The sun said goodbye, we finished the vodka. I got dead drunk. He dragged me to the tricycle so we could get back to the pension house. I spent the evening spitting on the wall.

The next day we went swimming with the sharks, me with my massive hang-over. There was silence on the boat. I couldn’t stand silence.

So I said, “about last night.”

He answered. “We can try.”

His first “I love you” came many months after. The declaration of real love when we parted for a while.

I married the guy last year.

Somehow I/we always ends up in a graveyard.

One afternoon, we decided to leave the infant and the elderly in the rented house. After two days of long drives and sauntering, they needed to recover. And we needed our private time as a couple. In the mid-day summer heat, we hopped on the car to find Mille de Etangs or The Thousand Ponds, lured by the aerial shots I saw online. From Rupt Sur Moselle, we followed the route to Faucogney-et-la-Mer, thinking it will be easy to find such a popular spot.

How wrong we were! This is France’s countryside, not the Netherlands. Not everything is 30 minutes away and even if they are, you must have a really good sense of direction or a professional GPS to find the neatly-hidden spots in this “wilderness”. Because we didn’t want to spend all our afternoon with our faces stuck on a tiny screen, we ditched the mobile phone and followed our instincts.

We turned right somewhere, on a tiny village road, unpaved, easy to miss, almost concealed by overgrowth – the kind you see in horror films, which one way or the other, leads to the savage demise of the main character.