Over many years of traveling to and within Europe, I have become a big fan of spending an increasing amount of time on my trips in the “B” cities and towns rather than dedicating all of my time to the major centres. Portugal has two “A” cities if you’ll allow me to use that expression – Porto and Lisbon – and while I enjoyed both of those cities, my most fond memories from two weeks in this beautiful country were from the time we spent in Nazaré.

In plotting our Portugal itinerary, it was my wife who initially picked out this town as a stopping place. Seeing it perched on the Atlantic captured my imagination. Renting an apartment with a view over the ocean made me giddy with anticipation.

When we pulled into Nazaré by bus from Lisbon, I was dreaming of time on the beach and time to be spent just staring out to the ocean. On the short walk from the bus stop to our apartment, a cacophony of waves crashing and seagulls squawking sent my heart to a very happy place. My time in Nazaré was only minutes old, and already, I felt at home.

That first night, after picking up the necessities to make dinner (and by necessities, I mean ample Vinho Verde), I spent the rest of the evening sitting on our deck and watching the sun set into the Atlantic.

Living next to the Atlantic Ocean for most of my life, I had seen plenty of sun rises over that ocean, but never a sunset into it. It was beautiful.

While staring out to sea can keep me entertained for hours on end, there was much more to Nazaré that I wanted to experience. On a spectacular morning, my wife and I headed up to the Sítio district by funicular.

We came up here for the stunning views out to what is one of the world’s great surfing locations. So much is this area known for the sport, that they erected this interesting statue that overlooks the water. The statue makes me want to ask some questions, but I’ll leave that for another time and place.

While this was off-season for professional surfing, it was fun to watch what was a small surfing class do their thing in the waters far below.

A lighthouse sits atop a cliff that juts out furtheset into the Atlantic. During surfing competitions, this vantage point would make for an amazing view of the action.

No surfers south of the lighthouse on this day, but by the smiles on our faces, you can tell that two Atlantic Canadians are getting their fill of ocean air and salt sea spray.

Back toward the funicular, we ventured into the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Nazaré, a beautiful church that dominates a public square in Sítio.

When we ventured inside, we were lucky enough to witness part of a wedding ceremony occurring that afternoon.

Panoramic views are amazing, but for me, I needed to spend some time closer to the water on the pristine beach that stretches for the length of Nazaré. In the late afternoon, the waves were crashing into the beach with increasing force.

Walking along here late in the afternoon, it felt like we had the beach almost to ourselves. The lighthouse we visited earlier up in Sítio is on the top of the cliff off in the distance.

The beach was largely ours as we were here in the decidedly non-tourist time of mid-October, and because the whipping winds kept many people back off the beach. You can tell a bit of a breeze won’t stop us from exploring a shoreline as this is nothing new to a couple of former coastal dwellers like us.

Continuing a tradition I started somewhere many, many years back on my travels, I had to get my feet wet. I was happy to be reintroduced to the Atlantic Ocean after a few too many years away.

And in another beach-related tradition, in this stretch of sand in Nazaré I wrote my former (Chewy) and current (Chloe) dogs’ names in the sand. Whenever I travel, I miss my dog, and this somehow always feels like the right kind of tribute. While Chewy left us a couple of years back and Chloe was waiting back in Saskatoon for us, it was nice to know they were here with us, at least in our minds.

And speaking of dogs, we saw a lot of them in Nazaré. From one of the luckiest ones who was enjoying a seat at the market while being fed by his table mate (left, in the photo below), to a dog who we’d watch multiple times a day cross the busy main street at the crosswalk to walk over to the beach to pee (upper right), to what seemed like a friendly stray dog who wandered over to say hi up in Sítio – there were so many dogs here that obviously made both of us very, very happy.

 

It was only a couple of days, but it was everything I needed from this vacation. A beach-front town on the Atlantic, and a slower, quiet pace with sounds, sights and smells that were more familiar than foreign. Our deck overlooking the Atlantic may have had something to do with the joy I felt.

Nazaré. It was easily my favourite part of Portugal.