Nazare is a town with an upper and lower section. The upper section in on a cliff and the lower section is down on the beach. I was excited to see our AirBnB because it was advertised as only 50m from the beach... and it was. A big beautiful beach!
We managed to park in a public lot that didn't require too much winding through the very narrow streets of the lower town and then walked to our place.
Street not really wide enough for a car, although I expect a smart car would have no problem.
The alley behind us was even narrower than the street in front of the apartment. The backyard neighbor had a balcony that was the width of a chair. They had a small table and two chairs squeezed onto it.
After dropping our bags off, we decided to stroll the beach first and then take a funicular to the upper city.
There were several fish vendors selling dried fish and lots of fish on racks. I'm not a seafood person and this was not attractive to me, but apparently it is sardine season and those who like sardines were very much enjoying the fish.
Traditional fishing boat on display along side several other styles of boat.
There weren't many people in the water, although a number were sunbathing. We dipped our feet in and the temperature alone was enough to deter us from wanting to swim, but it was also our impression that the undertow here was pretty serious.
The point in the distance is an old fort and lighthouse and the point has some of the largest waves in the world when winter storms come in off the side (70 ft high waves!). We would head for the point after walking on the beach.
It seems that public viewing places are set up in squares in each town to watch world cup soccer matches. The one in Narzare was right on the beach.
You can see the funicular on the hill side.
It offered quite a great view going up the cliff.
This view was from the upper town looking down at the lower town. The sun and shadows were very pretty.
We got up to the upper town late in the day (probably around 7:45) and we were hungry, but most of the cafes had closed for the evening. I was getting hangry. We finally found a path-side burger place that was still serving!
This church was in a square on the way to the lighthouse on the point, but was closed.
The beach beyond the point where the huge waves come in under certain conditions. The sun was setting, but there were a lot of clouds.
This 3D model shows why the waves get so high here during storms. There is a giant underwater canyon coming up to the shore. The fort/light house is on the far right in this picture. The waves push up the canyon and the end it right on the point where they break in huge waves. People do surf them, but its very risky.
I don't know how big the waves were today (nothing close to 70 ft), but the surge of the surf was impressive even from the heights where we were.
Looking back toward Navare from the point.
All along our drive from Aveiro to Nazare to Fatima and Coimbra, the highways had tons of oleander bushes blooming in the median.
The highway was mostly very hilly with mixed wood forests and villages scattered across the hills, but we did pass some low lying river deltas. This one looked like it was growing rice, but I'm not sure if it was
At one point we realized that we had been driving by several miles of what looked like storm damaged trees. This continued for miles and miles. I finally googled to see if there had been a big storm in the area and learned that in spring 2026, storms Kristin, Leonardo and Marta hit the Iberian pennisula in quick succession and caused a lot of flooding and damage. Kristin packed winds of 124 mi/hr, causing coastal waves 42 ft high. It left 1 million people without power, and caused 7 billion euros in damage!
Trees were either completed downed/uprooted or pushed way over.
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