Nice to meet you Portugal! I think we are going to get along just fine! We landed in Lisbon, picked up our fiat 500 and hit the road to Nazare.... Home of the worlds biggest waves in Winter. Without a working SIM card in our phone to use our GPS that is...but we found our way just fine thanks to a good old fashioned map! Nazare is a beach town about 1.5 hours drive from Lisbon. The roads are easy and the scenery is stunning. Beautiful vineyards and rolling hills with evergreens and orange trees.
A quick stop in the quintessential hill town of Obidos made us feel quite enamoured with Portugal already! It's a walled city with some ruins and a tiny town that you can walk from one end to the other in about 20 minutes along a narrow street lined with little colourful shops selling all sorts of delicious treats. We had a chocolate cup with the local cherry wine for 1 euro and it was delicious! There are so many things that catch my eye to bring home, such as blue and white tiles in every form of kitchen trivet or linens so beautiful you could host a dinner party every night! I'm going to need another suitcase to bring it all home!
We arrived at our guest house in the town of Nazare with little cobbled streets and brightly coloured homes. We are staying in a little guest house five minutes walk from the beach. We learned quickly that this Atlantic ocean is not our friend...for one it's cold even on a hot day of 34c and the b****** stole our prescription sunglasses on a roug wave. Jerk! Nazare is known for the biggest waves on record ever surfed and there is an amazing you tube video witnessing it from a year or two ago. Currently the waves are a few feet high and quite powerful, thus our graceful exit from the water crawling to the shore with sandbags in our bottoms the size of a very full diaper!
We made the journey to a Monastery in Alcobaca today with a stunning view of the 13th century architectural wonder. We saw the intricately carved tombs of Portugal's Romeo and Juliet, Then toured the monks quarters. And such sightseeing demands a break so we stopped at an award winning bakery for their sweet Portuguese tarts, almond cakes and a coffee. I think I'm in trouble staying away from sugar on this trip!
Onward we rolled for our own pilgrimage to Fatima, the town where a miracle occurred for three Shepard children about a hundred years ago, and while playing in the fields the Virgin Mary appeared to them. This is now a modern Catholic pilgrimage with Catholics walking here from around the country and once arriving at Fatima, will walk on their knees to receive a blessing. We witnessed some doing this while wondering how their knees could handle the heat on the stones beneath them. Such devotion! The site is a modern marvel with white stone all around. And thoughtful modern artistic implements. Pilgrims and tourists will flood the joint tomorrow for the 12th day of the month which is the day the Virgin
Mary appeared. We are glad we went on a day where it was not super busy.
We returned to Nazare for a walk to the high bluffs overlooking the town with beautiful views. We wandered over for a view of the famous lighthouse where the photos were taken of the 160 foot waves in winter. Hard to imagine that some people actually surf out there in those conditions!
We ate a great meal to end off the day with fresh olives and Portuguese buns, salad and steak for me with fresh sardines and local fish for Chris. The food was good, the atmosphere lively and our waiter lived in Canada for many years! It has been a good start to our time in Portugal!
Tomorrow we will drive through Coimbra on our way to Oporto. A pair of new sunglasses is in order for the drive!