Skip to main content

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

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stupid Libraries.

So I only have six minutes left and just wasted a few seconds letting you know, but I need some assistance in getting things off our iPod onto the net. In the last town we were in, I came so close to getting it up only to be thwarted by the only damn cd -burner in the shop being broken. This is the problem: my iPod is mac formatted - the folks at Apple thought it would be hilarious to not include some sort of compatibility between windows and mac versions of iTunes to read the voice memos you record from any computer. If your iPod formatted on a mac (I believe it's HSF +), windows iTunes will tell you to reformat the buggar . And get this, the iPod records voice memos in old school PC style wav files. What the hell. Anyway, I can't test or install things on this library computer, but if someone checking the blog who is tech savvy could find a program to retrieve data from a mac formatted iPod from a windows machine - a program that doesn't use a god damn install

Raymond's PCT Gear List

This is simply a list of what I currently have to carry on my back for the trip and things I am in charge of (electronic gadgets). I will update this list as I remember the little things I am forgetting. Clothing Head Hat Outdoor Research Sun Runner Cap 2.875 oz. - for desert climates in California Jen's handmade stocking cap - cold weather Torso Base Layer Mountain Hardwear Super Wicked Polo 4.375 oz. - warm weather Mountain Hardwear Men's Wicked Long-Sleeve Tee 5 oz. - cold weather (w/polo) Jacket Marmot Driclime 8.75 oz. - light jacket/windbreaker Marmot Precip 12.125 oz. - rain coat Sleepwear Patagonia Capilene 3 Long-Sleeve Crew 6.5 oz. - cold nights Hands Jen's handmade mittens - cold weather Legs Base Layer Ex Officio Give-N-Go Boxer Brief 2.5 oz. Patagonia Capilene 2 Bottoms 5.375 oz. - cold weather Pants Mountain Hardwear Mesa Convertible Pants 12.75 oz. - pants/shorts Marmot PreCip Full-Zip Ra

Paris here we come!

So not much to update since the last time. I'm trying to think what we even did the past two weeks. Well last weekend was roller derby nationals in Atlanta, GA and is the first time we haven't gone to nationals in...4 years! We have gone the past 4 years so it was a little sad not to be there. However they do stream it live for a small fee so we did that so last weekend lots of roller derby was watched! Luckily it was on the east coast so it was only 6 hours difference so we didn't stay up too too late (Sat I think we got to bed at like 3am) and we got to watch Gotham win again! It was fun watching from the couch, but I much prefer to be there. I mean when I would be yelling at the TV and clapping and cheering when something good happened and it is just not the same when it is just me doing that. The claps echo in the room...Next year is going to be in Milwaukee which I don't really know anything about, but apparently they have a lot of vegan food. We shall see if we ma