Portugal 2024 - West Coast Drive

We took a little drive along the West Coast! (Technically, the southern section of the west coast...)

1) It took just over an hour to get to our first stop, Amoreira Beach. We went into a Taberna on the South side of the river and had an espresso on the porch while soaking up the sun, waves, and surfer vibe. It was a steep path to the beach, so we stayed on the cliffs and relaxed!

You can see the 3 (yes, three!) surfers heading down the path...

From the little restaurant, we drove along the cliffs - there are little pull-outs and boardwalks so you can take in the views.

See the person sitting above the crumbling center? Ack!

2) We drove just a little farther to Monte Clérigo Beach - this time, we walked along the water ☺️

That was a whole lotta sand!

3) We went on to Ribat da Atalaia, a cliff point with some ruins

And views! White sand beach (and a diver) on this side,

Rocks and birds straight out,

And a black pebble beach on the other side.

I saw a surfer leaving as we drove up, but I could not see how he got down (then back up)!

We had our picnic lunch in the car, and headed to our next spot!

4) well, Bordeira Beach was something of a bust - we were on the wrong side of the river to do or see anything...

So, we drove part of the way to

5) Pontal da Carrapateira! We parked right before the road became a cliff-side dirt road, and walked to a couple of viewpoints

This is looking back towards our last stop.

I did drive a bit of the road, but not quite all the way to our intended spot.

Our return took us another hour, where I promptly took the wrong roundpoint exit - we had quite a tour of the streets of Carvoeiro!

~~~

Our waypoints, a total of about 6 hours:

1) Amoreira Beach (easy drive and parking, but beach is down a steep path)

2) Monte Clérigo Beach (plenty of parking and easy beach access)

3) Ribat da Atalaia (dirt road, then flat walk to cliff edge)

4) Bordeira Beach (plenty of parking, but beach was across the river)

5) Pontal da Carrapateira (narrow cliff-side dirt road)

We ended up just North of where we went the other day...

See more photos in the Portugal 2024 album