Nazare Beach, Leiria District, Portugal
- Nazare is Portuguese for Nazareth, it is said that a statue of the Virgin was brought from Nazareth in the 4th century
- It’s a surfing mecca and here was the worlds highest wave, especially in Praia do Norte: in 2011 a Hawaiian surfer rode a 78ft high wave and entered the Guiness World Record, in 2017 the record was broken with a 80ft, in Dec 2018 a British claimed to have rode a 100ft wave in Nazare
Narrow one way streets – how
can we find our Airbnb
Through rain we completed our
drive to Nazare and that is when the fun began: we have google map, so it
shouldn’t be too complicated correct: except we ended up at stairs and not our
Airbnb – which is around the corner. The roads were also so narrow, that Paul
had to backup once and you could see where people scratched the cars. For
making it easier we walked around 2 more corners and found the house – got the
key and now let’s bring the car around: this is not so simple when you want to
go straight and it is one way, then Gine said right but we can’t go around the
corner and then someone tells us to backup – in the meantime from straight and
left cars are coming and we have to back up so that we finally come to a road
in which direction we can drive – around the block a bit more and then down the
narrow street, once we are at the bottom we discover we went against a one way
street (haha it is really narrow and luckily we didn’t have to backup again).
Finally parked – for next time we have to find the proper way to drive here.
Downtime: washing – coffee –
relaxing
Our apartment is awesome –
perfect when you don’t want to go outside: Paul had a big lazy boy chair in
front of the TV – we have a washer: time to do laundry. And a beautiful balcony
with view on the ocean: except it rains and it is fairly cold. So we stay
inside. Where to dry the clothes? There is a little bamboo ladder in the
bathroom for the towels: Gine put the heater in the bathroom and closes the
door, so it’s nice and warm in there – and that becomes our clothe line.
As we only had one heater – in
the little kitchen we warm up the place with the open oven!!! Perfect.
Now all we need is for tomorrow warm weather
A Relax day starts lazy
We woke up to some sunshine –
had a relaxing coffee and because it was so beautiful outside we still started
out fairly early.
Parking on Sitio Main Plaza
Gine decided that we first drive
up to Sitio – so is this Nazare??
- Once it was a separate village on top of the cliff and the people there don’t fish, they farm – as where Nazare was a fishing village, today a furnicular goes up to the old town
We are off season, so parking
should be easy – correct? It is not: because I think Portugal’s old little
towns like one-way streets, once we came to the Main plaze we thought all is
full – then there is that busstop – and it kind of looks like a parking lot –
so we parked (by the way once we came back the whole row was full of cars –
sorry bus, no spot for you)
Ermida da Memoria
Portugal is very shaped by the Catholic
Church and by stories related to the Virgin Mary, so here is this little chapel
– which is super cute, with a tiled roof, and inside all tiled in the Portuguese
blue-white Azulejos, so why is that chapel here:
- It was here, that Vasco da Gama stopped to pray before he sailed to India (even the ship set sail in Belem)
- A nobleman Dom Fuas Roupinho was hunting a deer on a foggy morning when it disappeared at the edge of the cliff, he thought that he and his horse will fall off the cliff, when he begged for help from the Virgin of Nazare and was stopped and saved in time – he then built the chapel. Even more interesting: when the locals went ot check out where Mary saved him, they found the black Madonna in the rocks: the chapel is today where they found the Madonna.
Miradouro’s and Sao Miguel
Arcano Fort
Ok even more incredibles are the
Miradouro (Viewpoints), we are here 110m above the sea and we could see down on
the Praia da Nazare and the town, see the waves crashing (we could stand for
hours and watch the waves). We then followed the road down to the Fort Sao
Miguel Arcanjo
- Built in 1577 it was originally a Fort and then became a lighthouse in 1903 – to guide the ships and protect the coastline – and it is dedicated to the archangel Michael
- From here you can see both the Praia da Nazare and also the famous Praia do Norte: where the gigantic surf waves are
We were sitting on a little wall
and overlooked the Praia Norte – watching the waves and let the sun warm our
backs – it is so amazing, and we are actually quite close to the waves.
On the way back up Paul went
straight and Gine side toured along the edge.
From the top we continued along
the edge of the cliff to several more viewpoints – so gorgeous until we came to
the Furnicular: but decided to only look and not wait for it. What is cool –
some of the viewpoints are on overhanging rocks.
Here we also saw a funky Surf
Monument: a Deer holding a surfboard: until Gine discovered that this is a
monument to remember to of the most important things in Nazare: 1) the Surfing
& 2) the miracle rescue of Dom Fuas Roupinho
What’s is it about those
blue-white tiles or Azulejos???
- You see them everywhere: those blue-white Azulejos, so typical portugues – they usually tell a story and chronicle major events of Portuguese history
- When King Manuel visited Spain to check for wifes he also got thousand of tiles to decorate the palaces – he loved the colors and he started the tradition of tiles - Soon they started to make their own tiles the Azulejos: it comes from an arab word meaning “small polished stone”
- Tiles were also originally used to protect the walls of houses from cold temperatures
- They are blue and white, because the artists fell in love with the Chinese porcelain – in the 17th century the Dutch started to copying this style and then Portugal started it too
- On a lot of the tiles you can see the arab influence
- Since 2013 it is forbidden to demolish buildings with tile-covered facades in Lisbon to protect the cultural heritage
Coffee with a view
We watched so many waves that we
were in need of a coffee – and decided we have a balcony with a view and free
coffee so let’s head back. That is easier said then done. First: you need to be
able to back out of the parking lot – as there are so many cars waiting you can’t
go out, then we drove to the “Parking lot” and tried to turn around there – as otherwise
it was like impossible – you think that should be easy – but once we wanted to
drive out of the parking lot it was impossible because so many people wanted to
come in with their cars – maybe they don’t get it, if we don’t go out – they don’t
go in. And same up the hill until we left the main place – one car near the
other… Yes here in Portugal it’s “the early bird gets the parking lot”. Back at
our place we sit on our balcony overlooking the ocean and enjoy our coffee.
Waves at Praia da Nazare
Time again for the beach – this time
we head for the main beach in town: as it is a one-way street we start at the
very left and discovered along that street is all paid parking – one circle and
off the main street (I mean literally only 20 m) and we have free parking. Time
to check out the beach:
Boat and Dry fish museum
Along here we discover some old
colorful traditional old fishing boats – they are so nicely painted, they are really
not in use anymore – but the tourists like us like them. Right near it you
could smell the fish – because we are at the “sun dried fish museum”: in the
old days they dried here the fish to preserve it – it looks weird and the dried
fish look even weirder (and they smell!!), it was still fun.
The big waves
Time to head for the water – the
waves are huge and they are breaking so close to shore it is amazing – you stand
and they are breaking right in front of us – higher than we are. We were quite
a bit out there and then went back to sit down on one of those cute benches to
sit relax in the sunshine and watch the waves over the lighthouse – the beach
and the rocks at the fort.
Gine went for a walk along the
beach on another of those beautiful sidewalks with the black wave pattern in
the cobblestones to the other lighthouse to see more big waves.
At the lighthouse
We then parked at the lighthouse
with all the European RV’s and went to the lighthouse to watch the waves here…
once we had enough of the waves and coffee time approached we decided to head
to our balcony – which is less than 5 Min away…
Around our little
neighbourhood
So should we head out and do
some more wave watching??? Or how about we walk around our cute little
neighbourhood and go to the little square with a pillory and the church and
through the narrow alleys… and that is what we did. We found one house which as
per Paul is a tear down: we could see the different layers on building and had
some sneak peaks inside it too.
Ending a beautiful day with
sunset over the ocean – what more can we ask for?
2025-05-22