Ah Nazaré!

Thank you so much for providing a lift/ funicular/ train thingy to the top of the mountain!

Grahame was about to tick off one of the items on his bucket list. This was one of his main reasons for wanting to come to Portugal. To visit Nazaré .

Nazaré, home of the world’s biggest waves!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were staying at the bottom of the “hill” and where we needed to be was at the top of the “hill”. Of course!

We arrived at the top of the cliff, barely raising a sweat. And expending very little energy: a first for this holiday. Once again , thank you lift-thingy! But we had been lulled into complacency.

We were met at the top station by a wall of impressive ceramics tile work,

A great view,

And these two Old Portuguese blokes “chewing the fat” in a rather amazing setting.

There was, unsurprisingly, a large church, but today we opted for the little one instead.

Only took one minute!

From here to the famous little lighthouse that stands defiantly in the face of the Worlds Biggest Waves, was a 10 minute walk down a steep hill. A steep hill, with no shade and certainly not much of a sea breeze!

There were two types of structures to ponder on our walk down the hill:

The first:

The second:

You choose!!

We arrived at the little fort on the edge of the cliff and paid 1€ for the pleasure viewing the Surfing Museum housed within, and then climbing to the roof to gaze out to sea.

Ok, so we might not have seen the world’s largest waves rolling in, but they were still too big for me! (i.e, not flat!)

Bucket list item, tick.

Back down in Nazaré, two out of three decided a swim was in order. The water was icy, the sand was coarse and there was a heavy shore dump that kept most of the beach goers on the sand, working on their tans.

Grahame timed his run perfectly and managed to dive in and retreat before being splattered on the shoreline, Mithyl made it to knee depth and survived. I dipped my toe, and ended up with wet clothes!!

The Portuguese lifeguards had to make one rescue further down the beach. It was all very dramatic with sirens blaring, and lifeguards running down the beach. Those silly tourists!

Anyway, the whole ”going for a swim” thing was not the most satisfying, refreshing, joyous experience for any of us.

Next time, we’ll pick a quieter ( flat?) surf.

Our journey has adopted a bit of a routine: We wake, we eat, we explore, we eat, we move on, we explore, we eat, we sleep.

We moved on. To Aviero – the Venice of Portugal!

We arrived around sunset after driving along a not so pretty back road route. This country road driving, which worked so well for us last trip, is not what I’d cracked it up to be. Tomorrow we take the tollway and get wherever in half the time.

Now time for eating and soon after, sleeping!