Yippee - Google Street View on line at last

[TomUK]

Not before time, Google have now added the Algarve to their street view collection. So now you can sit with friends and family and bore them silly as you trundle around your holiday haunts on line. Seriously though, it will be a good way of showing people how to get to Carvoeiro and other resorts as if you were in the car with them. One thing to mention though is that the images are from the summer of 2009, so one or two changes have taken place since, but it's still very useful.

[widge]

Yes but it's at least a couple of years out of date and lots of changes have occurred since then.

[TomUK]

Yes but it's at least a couple of years out of date and lots of changes have occurred since then.

Did I not say that?

[widge]

Senior moment - apologies TomUK !

[Michael Crane]

I was hoping to take a look at Pato's place but SV doesn't go to his place. The nearest I can get is Mike, Chislehurst's villa driveway which is just around the corner.

[Michael Crane]

I can get very close to Dave and Gill's place, though; but not Roy's.

[Michael Crane]

It is brilliant for taking a better look at restaurants and bars: Ma-Ja's is a fine example. Just click on more and then Street View. Smashing!

[zhit]

That's really nice.

But it's a pity that they have taken the photos in the early morning hours. Every bar, shop, restaurant is closed, blinds are pulled down and there are only a few people on the streets. Visitors, who want to check their holiday destination via internet first, get a false impression. Normally Carvoeiro is not a ghost town, I think.

[TomUK]

That's really nice.

But it's a pity that they have taken the photos in the early morning hours. Every bar, shop, restaurant is closed, blinds are pulled down and there are only a few people on the streets. Visitors, who want to check their holiday destination via internet first, get a false impression. Normally Carvoeiro is not a ghost town, I think.

Another unfortunate thing is that the camera car was covering CVO during November which I presume is a quieter time, with some of the businesses closed for the winter months. There are some images from elsewhere which were photographed in August (parts of Albufeira for instance) so the streets look a lot livelier.

[dennisg]

Fantastic pictures. I was there in November 2009, looked for my car in the parking area outside my house then realised that I wouldn't recognise one hire car from another.

[sam]

Nice clear pictures, but they went straight past our street.

[TomUK]

They quite often seem by pass streets that are narrow or end in a cul-de-sac. Perhaps if the street is blocked by parked cars preventing them driving back out, they give them a miss. I was surprised that they took the trouble to drive along the waterfront in Portimao, which is technically pedestrians only except for the cycle lane down the middle. Their camera car even ventured onto the edges of Praca Manuel Teixera Gomez, where the fountains are.
Glad they did, because touring Portimao without giving us a glimpse of the river front would have been a bit of a let down.
I even managed to negoitate through the back streets and find the Copper Kettle cafe. As the name suggests, it has been run by Brits for many years and we always pay at least one visit whilst over there. It's a nostalgia thing really, because our first ever visit to Portugal was to Praia da Roche in 1985. There were 10 of us (five couples) and we descended on the Copper Kettle one afternoon. This was when P de R was smaller and most development was along the sea front. There was a lot of open land between there and Portimao. Nowadays the two places seem to merge. Eventually the cafe was bought by Tony Healey who used to run a pub in Sale near where we live, and we had mutual friends, so we have always made a point of at least one visit each time. It makes a change from Portuguese, Chinese, Italian and all the others we normally use. Tony sold the business and the owner is now Kevin Jones, who hails from the Wirral. Although last September he was talking about selling. The cafe was featured in the Algarve Resident, try this link: http://www.algarveresident.com/43787-0/ ... experience

[Please Sir]

which is technically pedestrians only except for the cycle lane down the middle.

Google don't let a little thing like that get in their way.

[TomUK]

Well - you learn something new everyday! Didn't know they used bikes also.

[Michael Crane]

Here's my favourite Street View image . . .


Taken down the road from my sister-in-law's house.