If you know anything at all about surfing, you'd know about Nazare in Portugal. The wave is absolutely massive when it's working and world records are set all the time. Please watch this short video for context - that'll give you a sense of why the place is so famous!
However the closest we would come to that is Butters surfing the graffiti wave. Disappointing, but it was still great to stand where the lighthouse is and imagine a huge wall of water towering above us. What an incredible force of nature. I still can't fathom how people can surf it! Mental.
As you walk down to the lighthouse there's a statue of a deer man with a board, combining the new legends of the town and the old... Some myth about a guy chasing a deer which wasn't half an interesting as the surfing aspect of the town.
We wandered around the fort and imagined what it'd be like to be part of the crowd watching people surf it, as well as try to figure out how the wave broke and where the channel was where the wave formed.
Basically,The Nazare Canyon is a submarine canyon off the coast - it's huge, over 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) deep, so as the ocean swells travel across the Atlantic, particularly in winter, they enter the canyon, and are forced through where they rise dramatically, sometimes reaching heights of over 100 feet which you saw in the video above.
We decided to pay the €2 entry fee to go in the surfing museum which was kinda cool. Of course you could see all the champion boards including the record holders, both male and female.
There was a room that detailed the geography of the place that formed the waves and a telly showing people surf it.
You could walk to the top of the fort too. I've seen footage of the wave breaking over this roof so I doubt the museum would be open on such days! Mind blowing.
There was various sculptures about . I loved this one of marble where the surfboard has a surface of forming waves.
Looking up the beach we could see a few surfers getting some small waves.
In the back room was an exhibition from Portuguese filmmaker and photographer Leo Domingos. Check out how the wave is higher than the lighthouse! Must be truly amazing to see.
After the walk around the museum, we headed up the beach at Praia do Norde. There were small punchy waves that Jamie paddled out and surfed, but it was a tad windy and I didn't feel comfortable in surfing out there s I enjoyed some beach time.
We also drive around the lower city which you could reach by a cable car on the cliff as well. It's a lovely, vibrant esplanade with tourist shops and cafes, and streets of shops and restaurants. We stopped for an espresso and a pastel de nata before heading to another beach.
Really loved our tour of Nazare.
With Love,
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