Campervan Adventures in Spain & Portugal: Nazare & Luso

Today we got up and headed to Nazare to spy on the beach. This place is famous for its giant waves, but unfortunately we were not there during that time.

We had to park on the edge of town since campers are not allowed to drive through and pretty instantly I was like nope! I did not like the vibe here. Maybe up on the cliffs it was different, but it wasn't my favorite town so we didn't spend that much time here.

Then it was on to Luso, one of the nicest small towns we went to in Portugal! The town had all of these cameras set up that you could look through and see what that spot looked like long ago. It was fun

Then we headed for a hike through the Bussaco National Forest which was a lot of fun

With this super fun staircase/fountain!

2 colors on the same plant!

We also walked partway along a stations of the cross trail with these small buildings as the stations

And some fun little rock towers

That you could climb up (this one had a super narrow staircase and we had to leave our bags at the bottom and squeeze our way up!)

But there were some really nice views over the surrounding area

Raymond said this park was like an arboretum gone wild - there were so many different types of trees!

Gates of Coimbra - the sign said you could be excommunicated if you cut down trees here!

Chapel of Saint Anthony the Great

Old Hermitage

Inside one of the station houses that still had sculptures in

Then we got to the grounds of Convent de Santa Cruz do Buçaco, which is now a fancy hotel

So many fun tile pictures

It was really beautiful and there is a small convent museum here

And we found these little guys sitting outside

While walking back to the car in Luso we saw so many people bringing 5 liter jugs to fill with water here at the spring - so we filled up our water bottles too!

This was such a nice stop!

Then it was on to camp (Parque de Campismo de Salgueiros) close to the beach just outside of Porto. I know I posted before about how surprising it was that Portugal is poor, but this beach had a perfect example of it. Along the water there were 4 new apartment buildings. Three were super nice - floor to ceiling windows, right on the water, just looked amazing. One was just the cement walls with graffiti all over it. Totally unfinished just the complete opposite of the other three. That was most of Portugal. Like they had money, they started projects, but then ran out or didn't have any for any upkeep. It was definitely not what I was expecting.

But the nature is gorgeous!

Such a fun day!

13.31km walked/86 flights

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