Nazare

We left our gorgeous hotel in Porto and hopped in a taxi to the rental car facility. It was about a mile by foot, but we snaked through a number of streets and up hills to reach our destination. The cab driver was really nice, and gave us a few places to go along the way, he said five days in Nazare was a long time, and asked if we were surfers. We told him no, we were just looking to unwind. He excitedly went on about places to check out.

At the rental car facility, we were greeted with a rather long line, only when we reached the front did we find a sweet lady, Michelle, trying her best to hold it together. Her colleague had rushed to the hospital to be present for the birth of his third child - apparently some customers didn't see this as a reason for them to have to wait. We both told her she was doing great, and we were sorry people were being terrible and to send the new father our congratulations.

Once we got into our rental car, after the anxiety of hoping it was an automatic transmission and the excitement of our success while setting the mirrors in place, we set out for Nazare. One less thing to stress over on foreign roads is always a wonderful thing. Reduce stressors, always. The toll road we took (A1) was perfectly smooth, a dream to drive, surrounded by trees with patches of farmland hugging rivers.

About two hours or so later, we wove our way through a few traffic circles to be deposited beach side. Our airbnb is in the middle of the one kilometer or so beach, right across the street from the old nets that are used to dry fish. This practice of drying fish across nets in the sun, right on the beach has been going on for likely hundreds of years. Now it's a bit of a tourist attraction, at this moment, right around noon there are tourists taking pictures of workers laying out the fish, and of the black-clad vendors.

Nazare has the slight chaos of any beach town, the vibe of barely held together children itching for adventure, young tourists looking for a cerveca, and retirees and the middle-aged, like myself, lounging on patios watching the world.

The beach is not a swimming beach, the waves are famously strong here. Yet the sand is peppered with umbrellas and there are a few glowing folks that might be a darker shade later, possibly in slight pain as the sun here is surpisingly intense.

Last night we ate like hobbits, having a first dinner/late lunch at a small restaurant along the side streets. Shayne ate a stuffed beef sandwich that was fantastic while I tucked into a plate of clams swimming in lemon and butter. We paired it with a red sangria that was kinda fizzy, with a foam head on it.

We wandered back to the AirBnb for a bit, then when the wifi died during our downtime, we headed back out. Walking toward the Sito part of town, we stopped at a hotel restaurant and tucked into a massive fish stew that was for two, but seemed like it could feed four. Chucks of potato, bell pepper, tomato mingled with a white fish. It was amazing.

When we got back to our room we decided to fire up Netflix again, to catch up on Raganarok, which we'd both been binging. I was behind Shayne and trying to catch up. I did. Then, we finished Season 2 together and went to bed around 3am.

I now sit at noon with my first coffee down, wondering if I should get another. Shayne is still asleep, or at least lounging. The bed is unfortunately not comfortable so we may leave here a bit early and head to Sintra or Monsanto. We'll see.