Costa Nova – Drive to Nazare

We didn’t set an alarm this morning and it felt good to sleep in. When I looked at the clock it was 8:20. We took our time getting ready and got out of the BnB just after 10:30. There wasn’t anything left on our list for Aviero so we headed to Costa Nova, a beach town where are host recommended an ocean front restaurant. Costa Nova was only 20 minutes away and we found it without any issue. Since it’s off season and we were there before Noon, we found street parking with no problem.

We got to the restaurant and was seated at a table with a good view of the ocean. The waiter informed us that the kitchen didn’t open until Noon but we could order drinks and wait. Since it was about 11:15 we did just that. I had a strawberry lime juice and Tom had a pineapple basil juice. Tom suggested I could go walk the beach while we waited for the kitchen to open, but I felt too relaxed and was enjoying my juice. Instead I researched if there were any geocaches in the area and when I found one .25 miles away I decided I would wait to do my walk on the beach until after lunch and combine the beach walk with the geocache search. We had placed our food order with our drink order so our food came out almost right at Noon. Tom and I shared a ham and cheese sandwich with a side of fries. The sandwich was a perfect sharing size and the fries were deliciously hot, fresh, and salty.

After lunch we walked down to the beach where I found a couple of seashell treasures, but no sea glass and took a couple of pictures. We walked back up to the boardwalk to continue the walk to the geocache. When we got to where it was there were a few people just hanging out which didn’t make it ideal searching conditions. We decided to continue our walk and circle back to it. When we came back the area was clear and I began the search. I did have to crawl under the boardwalk to make the find, so it was better that I waited for the people to leave. Having found the cache we walked back down to the street and walked past the Instagram famous multicolored houses before we made it back to our car.

Next on the agenda was to drive to the city of Nazare where our next AirBnB is located. The GPS wanted to take us via the freeway but we wanted to drive along the coast. It took a minute but we got it reprogrammed to avoid the highway. It was going to take an hour longer than the highway, but we didn’t mind as we find it interesting to drive through the small towns and see the “real” Portugal and for the opportunity to stop at any beaches along the way. The total estimated length of time going this route was 2 1/2 hours. It took us a couple of tries before we got going in the right direction but we got there.

After about and hour and a half we made a short detour to stop at a beach. We easily found parking at a playground next to the beach. Of course I checked for any geocaches in the area and found one relatively close by. It was located along the boardwalk so it was a perfect one to attempt. It took me right to an intersection of the boardwalk so I found a way to crawl under and take a look. Unfortunately I didn’t spot any geocache containers. We didn’t want to spend a lot of time at this stop so I gave up the hunt relatively quickly. What also makes geocaching a little more difficult is that the cache description page and hint are all in Portuguese which doesn’t assist me in giving me any additional clues of where I should look. We walked down to the water’s edge and I walked a very short way on the beach. I did find a couple of very small pieces of beach glass. On the way back to the car I checked under the boardwalk one more time for the cache but came up empty handed.

Back on the road we made one additional stop for a water view. I checked for geocaches and found one just off the parking lot. I attempted to find it, but this one was somewhere amongst a million nooks and crannies in a nothing but rocky area. We really only wanted to stop for 10 minutes at this stop so I really didn’t have time to give it a thorough search. Too bad, it was kind of fun spelunking.

We made it to Navare at 5:15. This is a beach town popular with surfers. We tried to get close to the Airbnb but the roads became single road alley types so I quickly made my way back up to the main road where we found a space that we believe to be free and not time restricted. We walked the several blocks to the AirBnB where we were to meet our host. We were lounging in the alley when an old lady leaned out her third story window and asked if we were there for the apartment. We said yes and she came down to show us into the apartment. We are on the second floor with a very nice balcony that overlooks the ocean. Good job Tom in booking this one! We had just brought our small bags with us until we had gotten into the apartment, so we trekked back up to the car to get our backpacks. It was a downhill walk to the apartment so I can imagine when we leave in a couple of days, how much fun it will be to walk up these huge hills with all our stuff.

Having gotten settled in we set back out to head to the little supermarket we had passed on the way to the AirBnB to pick up some beverages. Since we have such a nice balcony that overlooks where the sun sets we thought it would be nice to enjoy a couple of beverages on the balcony watching the sunset. I picked up a bottle of wine and Tom a Non-A Pear Somersby and an Apple Somersby. We took them back to the Airbnb and set back out to scope out restaurants for dinner. Our plan was to get a place picked out and then head back for the sunset, and then eat dinner after sunset.

We walked up and down the main drag and found a place with meat skewers that we were looking forward to going back to. We also passed a row of boats that I thought could make for interesting photos. I challenged Tom to a photo competition of who would take the better picture and we would post them here for a vote. Below is each of the photos we chose to submit. Feel free to vote in the comments!

Back at the BnB I got our glasses of wine poured and Tom set up the tripod and his remote to conduct a mini photoshoot. We had a lot of fun and since we wanted the glasses of wine to be full for the pictures, we soon found that we had gotten to the bottom of the bottle!! Tom is not normally a red wine drinker but he must have liked this one! He was feeling it more than I was.

With the sun set and the photoshoot over, we headed to the restaurant we had picked out earlier. We ordered the shrimp skewer and a chicken with mushroom risotto dish. Both were excellent! The shrimp had so much flavor. We were so happy with our selection.

Tomorrow we’re planning just a relaxing beach day. Unfortunately there are not many geocaches in the area, but there is plenty of beach for me to walk!

Stats of the Day

Steps: 13,958
Geocaches: 1 Found/ 2 DNF
Bottles of Wine Drank: 1