We have less than five weeks to get to Julia and Kevin near St Gilles Croix de Vie in France and we’re not even half way up Portugal. Time to get a bit of a wriggle on.
We left the nice campsite at Guincho and drove out to Cabo da Roca, the most westerly point of mainland Europe. It was windy there, but obviously not windy enough to blow away the heavy sea mist that looked intriguing hanging just off the rocks. Ah well, tick the box, take some photographs, and off we go.
We struck north through endless villages and towns, each one starting to look a little like the last one. We found ourselves in Gibraltar, but found no monkeys there; must be the other Gibraltar. We kicked on through Benfica, but didn’t see anyone kicking a football there; must have been the other Benfica. We stopped near São Martinho do Porto to buy some huge cherries from a lady selling them out of the back of her car. Like everyone in Portugal, she spoke perfect English, Rodney had a little chat and we set off again to find a spot by the beach for a honeydew melon with ham lunch. Unfortunately in São Martinho do Porto the sea mist was hanging right up to the road, so we couldn’t see anything of the beach or the sea and didn’t bother staying for a stroll. After a bit of a drive around misty Nazaré we finally pulled in to Camping Vale Paradaise on the edge of town. It seemed like far enough to drive and we were both tired.
On Sunday we didn’t cycle in to Sitio until very late in the afternoon. It was mainly downhill with a wind behind us; I was dreading the return journey….. But when we hopped off our bikes and stepped across to the whitewashed wall of the belvedere at the top of the cliff, I was so glad we had made the effort. The whole of Nazaré was spread out below us and the beauty of the view took us quite by surprise. At 5pm the long, curved beach was still covered with people sitting under brightly coloured umbrellas. The sea mist had finally gone.
A funicular was transporting the ‘beach people’ up the 110-metre cliff to Sitio, to wander around the old area, which was crowded with shops, cafés and restaurants. On the main square sits a tiny chapel with its interior walls completely covered with blue and white azulejos (tiles)and there is a statue of the Virgin Mary, reputedly brought from Nazareth in the 4th C. On the opposite side of the square there is the lovely, 17th C Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Nazaré. We stopped for drinks in a café to drink in the view and indulge in a little bit of people watching, then cycled back uphill with nearly a kilo of prawns and a baguette in my basket.
Back on the road again at 9:15am, we only drove 15kms inland to Alcobaça. It’s a small town with a very large monastery, the Cistercian Mosteiro de Santa Maria. In the transept of the church are the tombs of King Pedro I and his mistress, Ines de Castro who was assassinated in 1355, under the orders of Pedro’s father, King Alfonso IV. When Pedro became King, he ordered the remains of his beloved to be transferred to her tomb in Alcobaça, allegedly had her posthumously crowned as Queen of Portugal and ordered court members to pay her homage by kissing her decomposing hand. Glad we weren’t around back then.
We splashed out on a bottle of very special, locally made, ginginha, which I had tasted when we were in Sintra the previous week. It was handed to me in a shot glass made of chocolate; would I have said no to chocolate? Following instructions, I sipped half of the contents and then put the chocolate and the remaining ginginha in my mouth. It really is a taste sensation and I think it would be the only way to drink /eat it! So I’ll need to stock up on some chocolate to assist drinking my way slowly through the ½ litre bottle that we purchased. Sorry, no help needed on this one, it’s all mine…….
Our next stop was at Batalha, another small town with an enormous monastery. We roamed around the town and when we stepped inside the church of the Mosteiro da Batalha we felt absolutely tiny inside the towering nave; it has to be one of the narrowest and tallest I have seen. There was very little decoration, but the scale and slender dimensions made it quite grand. Back outside we sat at a café in the praça, eating, yes you guessed it, and we gazed across at the strange towers of the monastery, wondering why they looked so chopped off amongst the mass of pinnacles, towers, gables and flying buttresses; it’s really not as attractive on the outside.
Back in Eileen, we followed all the signs to the city of ‘Fig d Foz’, a delightful shortened version of Figueira da Foz, which is also a brilliant name in full, but obviously too long for signposts. And when we reached the city a good network of freeways led us on to the huge bridge over the Rio Mandego and straight out the other side of ‘da Foz’. Every road off to our left lead to a beach; this country really must have one of the richest supply of beaches in the world. At Mira we took one of those left turns and followed the coast road as far as Praia da Vagueira.
Before finding the campsite, we wandered down to the beach to stretch our legs and discovered something which was very new to us. There were two fine looking fishing boats resting on the beach and all around them was a hive of activity. There were tractors and trailers, winches and nets. People were standing around in groups and we were intrigued to find out what was happening.
It really was quite fascinating to watch but definitely not a career I would want to take up. The nets are put out at sea by the boats (we missed that bit) and they return to the beach about 45 minutes later; a mobile winch then draws the nets in slowly. Men with huge poles help narrow the nets in as they get closer to the shore.
When the net finally arrived on the beach the fish were flipping and flapping and the men cut through the twine on the top side. The tractor then dragged the empty nets away and spread them out on the sand, and the coiled ropes were transferred back to the boats. Two men with small nets on sticks transferred the contents of the main fishing net to masses of plastic trays which were placed on the top of the trailer and about twenty people surrounded the trailer to sort the fish.
More trays were spread all around behind them and they flung the fish into these trays according to size of sardine, or different trays for the occasional squid, cuttlefish or larger fish. There seemed to be fish flying everywhere and when you walked across the sand you had to avoid treading on ones left behind. People were coming and going with plastic bags full of fish, presumably the local restaurateurs, and all the while tourists stood around gawping at the whole spectacle, as we did too. Meanwhile the seagulls were going crazy picking off all the smaller ones that were thrown back in the sea.
When they had finished clearing one net, everybody moved along the beach and then repeated the process with the next net. And so it went on. We ended up staying so long that by the time we checked in to the campsite, Rodney had already missed a bit of the soccer match between Portugal and Germany, but he got to see most of it with a beer in hand at the campsite bar.
As the sun set on another day, I drank a glass of ginginha with a square of chocolate and we played a game of Uno. The drink was again a winning sensation, but the game was a brutal loss for me.
