Marina Atlantico Hotel Ponta Delgada

We were going to head to Lisbon but decided to stop in Nazare first. Nazare is a pretty ocean town that is very busy in the summer with tourists and beach goers. We arrived to a slightly overcast day and an empty beach. We stopped at a small restaurant for lunch and got some yummy soup (again) and seafood before making ...

... sea. In the grey mist there was an air of prehistoric mystery.
When the weather cleared and we walked the 10 miles around the peninsula three islands appeared as well as lots of housing and factories. We now know what the smell is - fish salting and sardine canning! We should have recognised the smell as it pervades every super market. Salt fish seems to be the staple diet and we have even ...

... pictures, and headed to the souvenir shops for some shopping. I bought a few things, including... chicken? OH right, we are in Portugal!

So this castle was King Afonso's gift to his wife.

It was a little disappointing to not getta see much here.. beside shopping for souvenirs...

... we had a beach to get to. And what a beach it was. The Praia del Rey hotel is situated on a beautiful stretch of coast lined with cliffs on the edge of incredible beaches that were almost always empty. Each time we went out to sand we were almost alone for a mile in each direction. In the five nights and days we spent along the Obidos area coast we sat by the pool and the osean, read books, napped, drank beer and wine and took the occasional evening trip to one of the local villages for ...

... etc. After roaming about for a good hour, we came back to the hotel to pick up our luggage.

On the way to Nazare, we saw signboards of Figueira da Foz so we drove that way to have a look. It was a lovely beach town & a bustling port. Instead of taking the Motorway, we drove on the internal road to Nazare. We were overjoyed on reaching Albergaria Mar Bravo, our hotel. It was on the ...

... hired bikes and rode around the bay looking for saome waves, having no such luck we had a bite to eat and then put our wetties on. We jumped in the water around the fort with~a few yelps (damn cold) and snorkelled around the cliffs. The water was quite clear and the sealife quite different to the tropical stuff I have been seeing of late. When we were nearly frozen we got out and thawed in the sun.....

... also sold white clams, shrimp, conches and black clams still squirting Atlantic Ocean water. The snails were smaller than we imagined which explains why there were so many on our plate. The snails had little mouths and tiny antennas and we didnt really feel comfortable about eating them but were glad we tried them. The slippery little suckers were marinated in oil and coriander and were tasty buggers. Bon Appetite! After this we checked out the gloriously tacky souvenir ...

Wow, how can I begin! The last few days have been quite a whirlwind, but fun and amazing all the same. The conference finished yesterday (at 3 in the morning...) with a lovely banquet in an old castle (Sintra, Portugal) overlooking the beach. The food was wonderful (a type of seafood paella with curry, local port wine, all kinds of interesting appetizers, etc). Following dinner there was a reception with dancing, which is always interesting and ...

For our last day in Portugal, our group headed off to two medieval towns - Obidos is a nice little city, famous for producing tiles (also part of the Moorish legacy) they are particularly known for a type of cherry liquor that they produce - the special thing is that they serve it in chocolate cups! delicious. At our second stop (ughh for the life of me can't remember the name ...

... bus built for 9 (8 passengers and the driver). There were 3 Aussies, 3 Americans and 2 Taiwanese girls and we all hit it off immediately. Our first stop was Sintra and lovely little town near the coast of Portugal which used to be the summer retreat of the Portuguese king 150 years ago. There area has a national park which was planted by the king when he fell in love with the area. He chose a wide variety of trees and plants so it's a mish ...