Wednesday was a full day of touring around with Charlie and Carol. I first took them down to the town, Zambujeira Do Mar, just to see the way the streets are laid out and the access to different things, the grocery store, where the bakery is, my favourite restaurants and a few little shops . We had breakfast at Restaurante Rita, one of my favourite places overlooking the main cliff in town. We all had omelettes and fries and instead of having coffee, since it was closer to noon, we had pints of beer. That was fabulous. Restaurant Rita overlooks the cliffs at the edge of town and from the view, you can see the old church in town and the white washed houses. You can walk down to the beach – it’s considered to be (I’m sure this is advertising) the best urban beach and of course the Rota Vincentina goes right through the town of Zambujeira. Even before we left the house, Charlie and Carol had had a little walk up the driveway and out to the coast to overlook the coast line along the north of the village. It’s a good way to get panoramic views over a lot of this area. I took them south of Zambujeira Do Mar beach to Alteirinhos beach,up a hill and down a hill from the town. It is a quieter beach away from the hustle and bustle of the village but, they do have a surfing school here, so I’m sure in August it is very busy . It’s in the valley and has a long narrow beach between the cliffs. We drove south to see the town of Azenha Do Mar, a natural fishing harbor. A lot of people in the 1960s, settled here and gathered seaweed and did fishing . If you look carefully, you can see stork’s nests on the rocks. After that, we headed north to the fishing the fishing village attached to Zambujeira. It is called Entrada Do Barca. It’s the one that, as you come down the road towards it, it has the two well known restaurants. I’ve been to one, O Sacas, many times and always have enjoyed my meal there. The other restaurant wasn’t open until this week. Before I had the car I walked there; now it’s much easier to access. If you get to the harbour at 11 in the morning they have fish auctions during the week and a lot of the restaurants go to buy their fish. You can also see hikers coming down the steps on the one side of the cliffs to continue on south on the route of the Rota Vincentina. Since the tide was out we could walk out on the breaker wall and get a different view of the harbour. Ross had walked out there last week but he said it made him uncomfortable because, at that time, the tide was coming in. We went out to the end of the breaker wall and it really does give you different views of the cliffs as if you were out in a boat. After that, I took them up to Almograve to the very, very long beach there, to show them where I met the surfer and learned a little bit more about his sport. We walked to the beach. It happens to be one of my favourite spots after that we went up to Cabo Sardao, which is the beach with a lighthouse, this is the spot you watch the birds you can see the storks nesting on the cliffs and there are a lot of Perigrine falcons around. The lighthouse there was built back in 1915; it was open yesterday, but we didn’t to her through Remax after that, We drove to Sao Tetonio to get groceries; Carol and Charlie wanted cheese, shrimp and olives and things like that, so that’s a good place to get them. At home Carol cooked a cauliflower soup. She only used half of the cauliflower; there’s more to bake today. We had a lovely meal and then watched four epsisodes of the Ted Lasso series that they’ve been following on Apple TV. It was a great day. Thursday I plan to take them to Vila Nova de Milfontes and some of the beaches around there that I really am attached to. I do feel like a permanent resident here; I know my ways around the roads now as if I am at home.
