Today started bright and early at around 9 am, when we met to go take a day trip to municipalities and beaches north of Lisbon. It was, in short, incredible and fun and amazing, and Dave’s expertise when it comes to food is not to be questioned. He’s the one who also made the Pizza, and he took Laura, Michael, and I to see some of his favorite places. Warning: this post is pretty darn long. I took a lot of photos today, haha. I’m sorry this post has over 40 photos–this hopefully makes up for all the days where my post is literally just a photo of dinner and me saying I’m tired (i.e. weekdays). Honestly each one of these cities is enough to merit an entire blog post on its own, so I’ll try and keep it short. (HA! -Lara, after 2 hours of choosing photos and blogging)
Nazaré
The first stop was Nazaré, home of some of the world’s biggest waves due to an underwater canyon that’s right off the beach.
It’s been the site of some world records for surfing, and the light house at the tip of the peninsula was full of surfboards from famous surfers who frequent the area. However, summer is the calm season, so there weren’t any waves to write home about today. At the tip of the peninsula, there were some incredible views of the ocean.
We took some photos at the edge of the peninsula, with the view of Nazaré and the beach and the ocean in the background.
I wanted to go to this rock outcropping here:
It was a bit slippery going down, to say the least, but I’ve always been told there’s no shame in going down on your butt, so I did. 🙂 I know in the video it looks like I’m going behind the bush when there’s a perfectly good path right there, but trust me, the better path was behind the bush.
DSCN0232 (sorry if you have to download the video to watch it–I just thought it was kinda funny)
The views from that rock were gorgeous as well, and the water was starting to get more and more turquoise as the sun was coming out. I am so small compared to everything!!! 😀 it was great.
Then we walked along the boardwalk and scoped out potential places to eat dessert. The beach was beautiful and pretty empty, and I just really loved these boats.
For lunch, we ate at a seafood restaurant, and I was so in love with the clams I tried in Ericeira that I wanted to eat them again. These are in the style of Bulhao Pato, which basically means white wine, garlic, lemon, and coriander. And olive oil. These were delicious. They’re so packed with intense flavor and the liquid they are served in was so amazing. I know I’ve disliked seafood most of my life, and this is just awesome. they’re fun to slurp! and then bread dipped in the liquid is so richly flavorful.
Michael had cod and Laura had “an entire flounder”. quotes for the emphasis. 😉 Dave had some fish that we’re not entirely certain what it was, but all in all, it was so good. I was so full after a plateful of clams and a bread–it was awesome.
Finally, we went to the beach after some ice cream and a chocolate filled Berlim pastery (Berliner), and the sand was warm. I’m wearing jeans as you can see, because it was a tad chilly, but there were people lounging in swimsuits, so it’s possible that I’m just a little wimpy. That’s okay though. It was a beautiful beach (and much less crowded than yesterday’s, though to be fair the distance from Lisbon is also far greater so it makes perfect sense. There were not many–if any–non-portuguese tourists out and about).
Óbidos
Partially surrounded by a city wall that is crowned by a beautiful castle, Óbidos is another town, sort of in between Lisbon and Nazaré. It’s an adorable town–it felt a bit like talinn with the city wall, but it was just so beautifully quaint.
This was a bookstore that used to be a church–they left the decorative aspects of the church front but removed all the religious iconography, which I thought made it look kind of ethereal and whimsical–without any grounding ties to the christian themes it was built for, it was just a really beautiful space.
We climbed up the city wall (on the portions where it was permitted, a lot of it was closed. it looks like they are renovating a lot here right now, probably to meet the demand of the recent massive tourist influx), and the views of both Óbidos and the surrounding farm fields was really cool as well.
While walking around Óbidos, we had a Ginjinha shot served in a chocolate cup–a very traditional thing that this city is particularly famous for, though you can get them in Lisbon too.
Then, we walked into this tiny bakery that was making massive trays of pastries and breads filled with chorico. This was another one of Dave’s favorite places–upon asking him what it was we were about to eat, he said “love”. And honestly, it was pretty amazing. This cake was so moist and sweet and flavorful–you could really taste the butter it was so good. I was astonished. It had coconut and orange (which might be what keeps it so moist in the fire stone oven that they were using) and enough butter that it could be tasted.
Other sites and delights around Óbidos:
Ericeira
This was the fishing village and beach that I had visited before, with my housemates. This time, though, we went in the other direction of the coastline. I loved it as much as I loved it the first time.
The city is so idyllic, and the weather was gorgeous today as well.
I love the coast! and the ocean! It’s so beautiful here!
I have started spotting the tile that I really love–though there are patterns everywhere, I like to find the more complex designs, which truly are everywhere as well. 🙂
That’s all for tonight–today was super long and I have spent the past 2 hours just typing up this blog, haha. But I’m so full, I couldn’t imagine eating dinner. I may just bake some cookies for Dave tomorrow, iron, and call it a night.
Much love!