Tuesday 27th October 2015 – Aljezur, Portugal

We had some heavy rain and strong winds during the night but the blanket of low cloud had lifted by the morning. The views however were still murky and so we set of west in search of Portugal’s Atlantic coast.

The N267 was a pretty road down from the mountains to the plain with lovely views near Marmelete. We arrived at Aljezur, which looked like an interesting town straddling a river and with a castle but we decided not to stop. The Michelin map showed the road to the coast as scenic so we decided to take it. At first, it was just more of the dry, scrubby land but then we started to see views of the Cerca (or Aljezur) river and estuary. There appeared to be a large area of paddy fields and I had read that an area further up the coast provided much of Portugal’s rice. And then we reached the coast with a new road heading north to the promontory at the mouth of the estuary. The road had lots of parking places and picnic spots and large wooden boardwalks that took us over the sand dunes to the cliffs from where we could appreciate the majesty and power of the Atlantic. Massive rollers crashed into the cliffs, the spray filled the air and a fisherman cast his line over the cliff into the maelstrom below.

We had lunch overlooking the sea and then headed on to the end of the road where we found magnificent views of the estuary. The tide was coming in and we watched the water pouring inland, covering stretches of sand. There is something hypnotic about watching waves, especially huge ones as they break and foam before running up the beach.

We drove south along the road to Arrifana where we went through the village and out to another promontory. Here we saw some of the best coastal view that we have ever seen both looking north and south. Just below the promontory is the Arrifana port but the fishing boats were being buffeted by the sea as the waves broke over the harbour wall. Magnificent views and well worth a visit.

I had found on the Internet the Serao campsite, just outside Aljezur. We headed there and were greeted by a smiley and very helpful receptionist who advised just where to pith so that we got the early morning and late evening sun.

Photos: Early morning sun on the terraced fields just below the Foia summit; The Cerca river and paddy fields (?) close to the sea; The wild Atlantic close to our picnic spot – the top of the cliffs were covered in broken shells where birds had bought their catches to break them on the exposed rock; The Cerca estuary with the sea at high tide; From Arrifana looking north along the coast; Looking south over the port of Arrifana.