The Alentejo Coast

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The West coast of Portugal - Tui to Sagres – 12 November to 22 November

Well, after spending the evening in the first Irish bar of the trip in Tui, I find myself in a place called Ingrina. I’d never heard of either of these places prior to the trip, and whilst I’d return to one, Tui can keep it’s bottled Guinness to itself.

From Tui it has been down to Porto, then Coimbra, Batalha, Tomar, Pego, Milfontes, Carrapeteira, and finally Sagres.

Porto is the 2nd largest city in Portugal so navigating it was a bit of a nightmare, glad I came across it on the Sunday rather than the Saturday as the town would have been even busier.

The ‘old town’ is very nice, not amazing but nice, but oddly within a street or two parts of it are, well to put it politely, not very pleasant. Rundown, in some cases un-habitable, it is not what you’d expect from somewhere like Porto. But literally 20 metres away as the crow flies, the buildings are wonderful. Most odd.

The following day was a coastal drive down to Aviero, with what seemed like a fabulous nightspot found on the internet. Right on the beach, amongst the sand dunes. Lovely. However, with the gates firmly padlocked, we left without spending the night on the beach. As it was getting on, and would be dark within an hour or two, we spotted another campervan making its way further down this coastal road so chased after it, at about 20kmh, and eventually followed it into a car park surrounded by picturesque sand dunes. The perfect spot for the night. Then we both spotted the ‘no campervans between 00:00 and 08:00’ sign so after a brief run on the beach with the dog, and a few pretty photos we found the next place on the list of possible overnight stops and set off for Coimbra.

To our delight the Coimbra spot was excellent. A free Aire with complimentary electricity and wifi. Super. The only thing that was not super was the construction workers at 8am, but we shouldn’t moan too much really! We didn’t spend any time in Coimbra, as I don’t think there’s too much of note to go and see.

So, we set off for for the longish drive to Batalha, which had nothing but a free place to park at night and a quite odd cathedral and convent. A few photos attached as I was a bit snap happy at the time.

We then drove over to Tomar via Fatima. It is quite different here to England in that religion is so big. Roman Catholics mainly. In Fatima, there was supposedly some evening where 70,000 people were gathered and saw something in the sky, I couldn’t quite decipher if it was the virgin Mary or not…, but in truth we all know it was just some odd cloud formation at sunset. There is now some massive religious thing in that spot, and most odd where these people crawling on their knees down to the bottom. Religion does weird things to people. I didn’t think Christianity did but I was obviously wrong. Bonkers the lot of them.

Anyway, Tomar was much nicer. Drove up some horrible tight windy road to a carpark to see some magnificent castle. There were about 7 vans they and they said they were parking for the night so we did the same. Had a quick look around this castle and it was quite impressive. I don’t think it would have held up under siege for any period of time but was quite dramatic nonetheless. I was even more snap happy here so I apologise for the sheer number of pictures. You are not obliged to look at them all, but I’ve uploaded them in case you feel compelled.

The remainder of the trip continued down coastal roads. Pego was a detour in land and was a lovely site just off the edge of a man made lake. Nice spot but not somewhere you visit for any other reason than an overnight stop in your campervan.

The area along the coast is lovely, with numerous small villages, all lovely and quaint. Carrapateria being the nicest. There were a good number of surfers here and we were able to stop overnight on the cliffs with an outlook over the beach, which was perhaps a 100m walk away. A place I’d happily come back to, and it would be interesting to see it in the summer with the tourists, even though it’s out of the way, I’m sure it gets busy.

We then drove down to Sagres, and the Cape of St Vincent, which is the most South Westerly point of mainland Europe. A few odd bits on sale on market stalls here, but I wasn’t temted by a goat fur blanket, so kept my Euros in my pocket.

We then pootled along the coast, taking in the views and ended up at a tiny village called Ingrina. Again, a bit off the beaten track and a spot that seemed to be a secret to everyone but campervaners, surfers and windsurfers. There are a few holiday apartments but not many, and on a sunny summers day it would be an idilic spot.

So that’s it so far. The last 10 days has been a fairly quick drive down Portugal’s West Coast. A bit of bumming around on beaches, and a bit of sightseeing. Off further East across the Algarve over the next few days. Hopefully a bit of golf, a bit of swimming, the odd beer or three, perfect.

Adeus!

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