Praia da Franquia

When we woke up Jackie floated the idea of not visiting Lisbon on this trip, because our sunbathing days were diminishing rapidly. It didn’t take me long to consider and agree to her proposal.

We left our accommodation as early as 9.30am, packed up the car and headed south. Our impression was that Coimbra had a lot to offer and it would be a worth a future visit.

We drove for around 2 hours and saw nothing much other than car show rooms, van dealerships, motorcycle shops & used car lots. There were literally hundreds of them. We stopped at a thoroughly modern McDonalds, hoping to get a good old fashioned McD breakfast, but we were out of luck. The waitress brought us out coffees in proper cups. I ordered a cheese and ham toastie, whilst Jackie had a disappointing egg McMuffin - smaller & with different bread.

Our first proper stop was Nazaré, famous for having the world’s biggest waves reaching the colossal height of 80-100 feet in the winter months. Surfers flock here for the Big Waves Awards Contest, which can be seen on YouTube. Nazaré had a nice vibe, but it was extremely windy, so we parked up & had a wander around without going down to the lighthouse. Instead we viewed it and the beach from afar.

30 minutes down the road we paused at Foz da Arelho, with it’s spectacular estuary beaches, but it was still blowing a gale, so we didn’t stop but continued onwards.

Another 30 minutes or so later we approached the city of Peniche located on a peninsula & famed for it’s surfing, but our car was being battered by the wind, so we did a u-turn and continued further south.

At this point we were both a bit disillusioned with Portugal, but identified a potential seaside resort that may satisfy our needs - Vila Nova de Milfontes which had half a dozen different beaches to suit everyone’s tastes. It was another 4 hours drive further down the coast on what turned out to be not particularly interesting roads through agricultural towns & sandy wastelands. I amused myself listening to the Ashes, whilst Jackie agonised over which accommodation to book for the weekend.

Around 6.30pm, we rolled into Vila Nova de Milfontes & our mood instantly lightened. The town had a really nice feel to it with a slight hippy vibe. We parked our car in a free car park & walked the short distance to our accommodation, Travelers by Rio NaturAL. We must have been given an upgrade, because our room was much larger than what we booked with a vaulted ceiling and a double door window looking down on the street below. Our best room of the trip so far.

We took a quick exploratory stroll before finding a bar for a beer. We both agreed that this was exactly the sort of place we were hoping for & we would almost certainly be extending our stay here. After a couple of beers, we went to a little restaurant immediately opposite our place, called StressFree. The owner was an enthusiastic lady & we had an enjoyable Portuguese style meal of lamb stew and pork with apple & honey. We will definitely be going back.

Song of the Day - Surfin’ Bird by The Ramones.Read more