Nazare had been on our ¨Travel To Do List¨ for some time. (Like most people's lists, ours is long.) I´ve read many articles about the giant waves and crazy surfers willing to test their mettle riding them. And while November is part of ¨big wave¨ season, there are no guarantees when they will occur. It takes the right kind of storm to create the precise conditions required. Thus, while we were thrilled with the sunshine and good weather during our visit, we were disappointed that we didn´t time it right.
Nazare´s geography is interesting. A large part of the city sits on a long beach below a large cliff. We took the funicular up and enjoyed the amazing views down.
On the other side of the cliff, below a fort and lighthouse, sits another beach where the giant waves crash. It´s a beautiful walk out to the lighthouse/fort and then down to the other side, where there were body surfers on the 8–10-foot waves that tightly curled. Even in these calmconditions, you could see this is not a place for amateurs.
\\
Nazare has a laid-back vibe and the fresh fish dinners were a delight, accompanied by crisp, local white wines. The town did not seem overrun, which we appreciated.
From Nazare we took a day trip about an hour south to visit Peniche, where we did a boat tour out to Berlangas Island that included a cave tour and hike.
The isolated island archipelago served as a defensive bastion, a royal retreat and as a fishing outpost before being designated as a nature reserve. A smaller boat took us into the various nooks and crannies of the island and gave us a full view of the Sao Joan Baptiste Fort and the rocky coastal formations.
We got off at the fort to explore and to hike back to the main dock. The fort sits on an outcropping that reminded us a bit of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe.
We hiked up the 300 or so steps, which provided great perspective of the fort´s defensive position, we then followed the ridge past the lighthouse and to the bit of infrastructure on the island with a guide who provided plenty of interesting information and history.
We returned to Peniche, which is also a surfing town, but with waves that are more welcoming to the average surfer. It also has a fort, that now hosts the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom, where we learned a lot about the Salazar dictatorship and the fort´s political prisoners that were finally released in April 1974. In all our trips to Portugal, we had never focused on this part of the country´s history.
We returned to Nazare tired from a full day and glad that we had ordered too much pizza at lunch, which allowed us to enjoy leftovers with some wine we had picked up along the way. It was a very good day.
Hasta pronto,
Shana & Jeff
No comments:
Post a Comment