Day 3 - Porto and Nazare. Having a bit of free time in the morning, I make a stop along the coast to check out the fort I saw from the bus yesterday. It's cool. Waves are picking up here too.
A few souvenirs to take home. Hope they survive the trip.
I'm meeting Linda near her apartment in a busy neighborhood. She mentioned that there is a cool abandoned mansion nearby. I'm primarily concerned with finding a parking spot - when I finally do, I get out of the car, look up, and there it is. Cool!
Experimenting with focus in portrait mode on the phone camer in the two pix below. Always more to learn, and I try to take every opportunity.
The drive to Nazare is uneventful, consisting of freeway. Takes about two hours. Pulling into town, I find an open and apparently free parking spot up on the hill a ways from the beach. It is cold and very windy. We walk down to the beach and grab a bite at a beachfront restaurant before continuing.
The town center is around south beach, climbing up the hills from there. There is decent size shore break, about 12-15' waves which is consistent with the forecast. Near the cliff where the lighthouse is, the waves are a lot higher.
There is a funicular tram that goes up the hill, and after debating drive vs tram, we walk over to the tram.
Some abandoned buildings here too. It being off-season, cold, windy, and intermittently rainy, there are very few people out and about.
Some cool whimsical mosaics at the tram station, and more up top.
The views from the cliff are impressive. There is a harbor past the south beach. I'm guessing that the jetskis which take surfers to the big waves have to come out of the harbor, as I can't see how you could get through the shore break from even the south beach, let alone the north one. The waves are significantly higher on north beach.
There is a plaza on top, surrounded by souvenir shops. A narrow road leads to the lighthouse. It appears to be closed to regular car traffic.
The lighthouse contains a surfing museum. There are also some cool seagull sculptures.
The reason for the massive waves at this spot is the underwater canyon that 'focuses' the incoming swell energy and pushes the water up as it heads to shore. The result is mountains of water that rise from the sea, cresting in a narrow peak rather than a long broad wave. The peak waves appear to be about 3X the size of the forecast conventional shore waves on south beach. So today it's about 45'. Pretty awesome to watch, from a safe distance.
After watching the waves for better part of an hour, we head back down. Linda catches the bus back to Porto and I check into the hotel.
Some cool street art here, too.
The hotel is on a small square right on south beach, the room is clean and nicely decorated, and the balcony has a view of the surf.
Tomorrow the waves are supposed to be higher still, so I look forward to seeing that before I head south to Lisbon.
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