The area around the Obidos Lagoon and Caldas da Rainha are now
well served as wireless holiday centres for the Silver Coast

Click here for an image of the Lagoon
©2008 Google - Imagery ©2008 DigitalGlobe, Cnes/Spot Image

Eight wireless hot spots (points of access to the internet) were
installed recently in Caldas da Rainha, permitting free of
charge use of the internet. With another two in Obidos, that
makes ten hot spots local to Lagoa do Obidos.

Praia del Rey and Silver Coast Holiday Villas

The program Oeste Digital of the Association of Municipalities
of the Oeste (AMO) has already started spending 229 thousand
euros for 54 hot spots and free media newsstands to serve the
councils of Alcobaca, Torres Vedras, Alenquer, Caldas, Lourinha,
Bombarral, Cadaval, Obidos, Nazare, Peniche, Arruda dos Vinhos
and Sobral de Monte Agraco. In Alcobaca there are nine hot
spots, in Torres Vedras twelve, Alenquer has six and Peniche and
Lourinha possess four. Obidos Nazare and Arruda dos Vinhos each
have two. Sobral de Monte Agraco has one.

In Caldas the eight hot spots are the fruit market square, the
old fish market square (5 de Outobro), the court house square,
the sports park swimming pools, the library, the arts centre,
Expoeste and the cycling Museum. Although the cycling museum
point of access is being moved to the central park and boating
lake area to give greater coverage.

AMO organised 47 free access multimedia newsstands for those who
do not have a portable computer near the hot spots. In Caldas
the newsstand will be in Rua das Montras, behind the "ex-Pacos
do Concelho".

The Caldas council also want to create the first wireless car
park of the city. There are already many people using the youth
centre point of access from inside their cars to get the
internet in comfort.

Praia del Rey and Silver Coast Holiday Villas

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Foz do Arelho will be one of 125 beaches in Portugal to be part of the Healthy Beach Program.

The healthy beach program also covers the beaches of Nazare, Vale Mitao (Lourinha) Santa Rita Norte, Santa Cruz (Torres Vedras) e Consolacao, Supertubos, Gamboa, Cova de Alfarroba, S. Bernardino e Baleal Sul (Peniche).

Cooperation between the Vodafone Foundation, the Navy, the Office of Water, the Institute for Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity, the National Institute for Rehabilitation and the Blue Flag Association of Europe, will include the beach at Foz do Arelho, in Caldas da Rainha.

This program aims to contribute to increasing the safety and quality of the environment on the beaches, as well as the accessibility to the disabled.

Major security equipment wll include jet-skis for rescue and watch towers. It also creates a network of mobile communications accessible to the public, mobile phones provided to rescuers and a telephone number to each beach post covered by the program.

Details in Portuguese.

Silver Coast Holiday Villas

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Italian Gastronomy Week at the Hotel Marriott.

From today (Tuesday 25th March) and up to the end of the month, in the restaurant Romy at Praia del Rey Marriot Golf there will be a "Semana gastronómica dedicada a Itália", an initiative of the Hotel Marriott and it's chef executive, Jean Paul Capitaine. Principal plates will be from Giorgio de Chirico, the chef of restaurant Prego, in Paris, and member of the Professional Association of Chefs of Italy.

Details in Portuguese.

Villa Rental on Praia del Rey

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A lawyer from Madeira returned to the Algarve this week where he is jointly sponsoring a search for missing Madeleine McCann’s body. In four days of searches so far at the Arade dam in Silves, divers have found a rope and an item they say is a girl’s sock made of a fabric uncommon to Portugal.

Marcos Aragão Correia from Funchal had sponsored searches for Madeleine at the Arade dam six weeks ago, acting on a tip-off he says he received from the underworld. Nothing was found at the time, but he decided to return this week with additional divers to cover a greater area.

The searches were scheduled to last until Friday, but Marcos Correia told The Portugal News that searches could continue into next week should divers, led by a team from Dive Time, a Lagos-based diving school, request more time to effectively rule out his suspicions.

The cost for the latest search is being shared by SPEC, a Portimão construction and engineering company.

The daily cost of the searches, says the lawyer from Madeira comes at a total cost of around €1,000.

To date, the only discovery of note was that of a sock, and pieces of rope, which, when joined together, measure 5.20 metres. Aragão said they will be handing these over to the Spanish private detective agency Metodo 3.

He says the decision to not hand over their latest discovery, stems from the inactivity by Portuguese police after he handed them another piece of rope back in February.

Supervisor at the dam, Hélder Brás, expressed pessimism that the searches would prove fruitful.

In comments to The Portugal News, he explained: “It is virtually impossible to find anything on the floor bed of the dam as the mud at the bottom is about four metres deep”.

Meanwhile, it emerged this week that the McCann family are contemplating taking action against newspapers over their coverage of the case, especially after they were declared formal suspects last September. According to reports in the Portuguese press, the McCanns have singled out the Express group of newspapers.

While no action has been taken in court, the coverage given by the group’s newspapers, which include Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and the Daily Star on Sunday has become almost non-existent.

A search on the Express website for information on Madeleine McCann returns no matches, except for one where Heather McCartney compares herself with Madeleine’s mother Kate McCann.

In a related story, the latest entry by Gerry McCann on his blog focuses on the discovery of the body of Spanish girl Mari Luz Cortés, who had been missing since mid-January.

“Kate and I were so sad to learn that Mari Luz’s body had been found. This is the news that any parent of a missing child dreads and a situation we desperately hope that we never have to face. We deeply sympathise with her family and pray they remain strong and in time are able to find peace”, wrote Gerry McCann this week.

He adds: “All of our family have been traumatised by Madeleine’s abduction and continued absence and the tremendous support we have received has undoubtedly helped us enormously over the last ten months.”

The Portugal News

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