Our original plan, for returning to our flat after the Berlenga visit, was to stop by the Nazarré town (below us on the beach) on the way home, to walk a bit on the beach.  But we quickly learned that Saturday afternoon the town is packed with beach goers, and there is no room to park a car, so we drove on up to our flat in the sky, looking down on the beach!

But late in the afternoon the wind was really strong.  We could see white caps on the water and we figured we should go see if there were any surfers out on the beach on the other side, that we looked at yesterday.  So we went to investigate.  

As we walked along the road towards where the road descends down to this other beach we got a glimpse of the huge cliffs, on which the part of the city where our flat is, that dominate the beach town.

Meet Veado (Portugues for “deer”).  He is a bit odd to look at but the plaque beside the statue explains it all (ignore all typos and translation errors):

“Sitio of Nazaré was once very populated by deer. The famous Legend of Nazaré reports that Dom Fuas Roupinho was hunting in Sitio and that, on a foggy 12th century morning, he isolated himself from his companions when he was chasing a deer that fell on the cliff. On the verge of fall, the knight cried out for the help of Our Lady of Nazaré. The horse sticked its rear legs at the top of the cliff immediately, saving Dom Fuas Roupinho’s life. In recent years, Praia do Norte of Nazaré has been the stage where the biggest waves on the planet are surfed – 30 meters have been recorded In this anthropomorphic work by Agostinho Pires and sculptor Adália Alberto (offered to the Municipality of Nazaré) the references to these two remarkable moments of Nazare’s history are visible, extolling the past and praising the present, both conjugated in the sculpture “Veado”.

So we continued the descent.

There were no surfers out on the beach, but the wind was strong, and the waves beautiful. It was fun to scramble down the 100 m to the beach by way of a road, paths, and then rock hopping.  The sand beach extends as far as the eye can see.  So we spent some time appreciating this unique area and then made our way back up.  A great way to end a great day!