ericeira

Ericeira - Wednesday 24th of June - day 6 of our roadtrip 2020

Change of scenery. We drove 300 km south and exchanged our cute white & blue cottage for an ancient white & blue windmill.

O Remoinho is about 500 years old, adapted as a house and entirely remodeled in 2014, surrounded by a huge garden and bed in the ridge of the mill overlooking the ocean.

Ericeira is an enchanting blue and white authentic fishing village and the 2nd world surfing reserve and 1st of Europe. (not that we even stood on the surfboard ourselves)

It is always surprising to discover a new place and we started with a lunch at the ocean.
We shared a super fresh 'dourada' with an Accidentely Wes Anderson view on a hotel, that might as well have been in a ski resort.

After lunch a siesta at Praia do Sul and taking it easy for the rest of the day. A boa vida!

porto

Porto - Tuesday 23rd of June - day 5 of our roadtrip 2020

From Furadouro it's only a 30 km drive to Porto. We decided to leave our coastal cottage early and have breakfast in Porto.

We ordered breakfast at Nicalou and while sipping our coffees, we watched the inhabitants of Porto on their way to work, outside on the terrace.

The streets of Porto were quiet, not the vibrant city we knew from previous visits some years agon. It felt weird and very double to walk through the silent streets, without tourists.

Normally it's almost impossible to take a picture of the impressive tiled side wall of the Igreja do Carmo, without anyone else in it. We live in a strange time, you notice that even more when you are traveling. Ordinary 'daily life' had been going on in portugal for a month before we came, but a city like Porto also runs on tourism.

Armed with our masks, we visited A Vida Portuguesa, the nicest shop in town; "atenção, obrigatório usar máscara". As usual we bought a useful souvenir overhere. The collection is very special, genuine and touching products and I can snoop around for hours every time again. All product sold in A Vida Portuguesa are made in Portugal.

This time i fell in love with a graceful corrugated glass teapot, from the Portuguese brand Depósito da Marinha Grande. Definitely not the most practical souvenir to bring back home safely in your suitcase, but I can report we succeeded.

Henk chose a ceramic Bordallo Pinheiro peanut and hazelnut. Nuts also not cracked during the journey.

We wandered through the city, popped into the Estação de São Bento, the station hall is kind of museum in itself. We continued our route over the Luís I Bridge, a double-deck metal arch bridge that spans the River Douro between Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. We walked on the top road (quite high) and had lunch at Ar de Rio, on the banks of the Douro overlooking Porto.

After lunch we walked back over the lower bridge and entertained ourselves excellently for a few more hours, with tiles, street art, terraces, etc.

In the evening, after a home-cooked dinner in our patio garden, a final Furadouro beachwalk, which is preparing for a new summer season, the wooden frames of the beach huts have already been built. Tomorrow we'll drive further south.

Adeus Furadoura, you were fabulous!

furadouro & praia do torrão do lameiro

Furadouro, Praia do Torrão do Lameiro, Ovar - Monday 22nd of June - day 4 of our roadtrip 2020

After breakfast in the backyard patio of our cottage, we walked around the neighborhood and had a cup of coffee on a terrace in the village of Furadoura.
We met the most artistic resident (I think at least) who was painting his extravagant "garagem". Love this!

We prepared a picnic lunch for the beach and drove to the nearby Praia de Torrão do Lameiro.

Praia de Torrão do Lameiro is a long oceanic beach. The pinewood and a dune system full of vegetation, bring in the air the scent of an untouched nature to this beach.

On arrival at the beach it turned out to be so quiet (because Monday?) and moreover windy. We looked for a nice spot on the dry sand, and put on our beach windshield.

We combed the tidy looking beach a bit and took a closer look at the traditional wooden fishing boat, which was apparently still used for fishing.

After we had lunch, we went into the wild ocean waves and a decided to take a nap.

I woke up from the ominous sound of an approaching wave and shouted loudly; 'Henk!'

In a split second he jumped up and grabbed the bag and saved our camera and phones. All our stuff was washed away by the mega wave and ended up 10 meters beyond.

We laughed out loud and while looking at the chaos of towels, windshield, clothes, shoes, keep-the-beach-clean plastic collection, etcetera on the beach. We were overjoyed that our most important belongings were still dry and started collecting all the wet stuff.

For the second time, we cleaned up the plastic rubbish that we collected earlier on the beach (haha) and Henk also found his sand-colored sunglasses.

We moved over to the fishing boat on the beach and our things were drying in the sun.

Our neighbor 40 meters away, was less amused by the flood and walked grumpily to his car.
We stayed for another hour and once our clothes were dry (everything was covered in sand) we decided to return to our house for a shower.

In the evening I put on my dungarees and glitter heels and we had dinner at Ó Chico in Ovar, in the only restaurant that was open on Mondays. We had fish, like every day actually, a table full of fresh fish dishes, salads and drinks and coffee for less than 17 euros. The disproportionate tip was more than worth a lovely evening and friendly service and the waiter was so so thankful! He kept waving us goodbye and repeating 'obrigado' until we were out of sight...

We walked the Ovar azulejos route once more, also magnificent in evening light!