Any
traveler who has tried to book a hotel online with sketchy Internet for the
next destination on short notice knows the feeling: EEEKK.
When it happened to us seeking a
room in Lisbon only 48 hours in advance on a national holiday, Robert finally
put his finger on a map of Portugal, where neither of us had ever been (but for
which we carried air unrefundable tickets) and said, “Forget Lisbon. We’re going here.”
“Nazaré” read the nearest dot.
That is how we flew in to its airport but skipped
one of Europe’s loveliest capitals, at least for the time being, and took a bus
immediately to one of its
loveliest fishing towns, where a room we liked was
available. We’re here now and an hour ago told the hotel’s front desk we’re
extending our stay.
Mornings are for walking, up in the
“Sitio” part of town, on a towering cliff with its spectacular view of the bay
below. Or in the “Praia” part of town below, which – after the weekend
tourists, mostly Portuguese, have disappeared – has the feeling of a Greek
village with small cafes and white-painted buildings. On the high side of town a cathedral housing
a black Madonna, believed miraculous, glows inside under a gold coffered
ceiling, nearby walls covered with mesmerizing blue tile depictions of saints and
secular legends. Twin funicular cable cars climb and descend the cliff separating
the two parts of town every half hour or so during daylight, passing each other
in the middle of the 1000-foot railway built in 1893, on a 42 per cent grade, a
heart-in-your-throat experience (we’ve done it twice now) that locals appear to
take in stride.
A few months ago Nazaré became
famous world-wide when big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara, who lives in Hawaii,
set a world record riding a foamy 100-foot breaker here.
Photos of the astounding ride are posted around
town, and a scientific explanation of the underwater canyon that creates the
big ones is available in hotel lobbies.
These spring days the waves are calmer, but surfers paddle out anyway to
enjoy the ride.
Nazaré is no longer remote, with
Lisbon only about two hours away by bus on fine roads, and no longer very small
– population is some 10,000. A proper
tourism desk sits inside a cultural center showing photos and artifacts of the
fishing village as it was in the last century, oxen hauling the laden boats up
onto the sands as late as the 1970s. Nazaré’s new ibrary (one of my measuring
sticks for developed civilization) is clean and well-lighted; we happened in
and saw an outstanding two-room exhibit of modern art from Mozambique, once a
Portuguese colony.
But the feeling remains here of a
town unafraid of its past, with a truly distinct local character, unhomogenized
by the wider world. Some women still use the traditional seven-skirt costume of
old with its sash in the back, and widows wear black head to toe.
Old and young
participate in the town’s traditional spiritual life, such as we saw yesterday:
the annual commemoration – on the same day – of the life of the sea, those lost
at sea, and mothers young and old.
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| A widow watches procession, which also commemorates those lost at sea |
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| Surfers line up for a blessing |
Oh, and did I say the food is great?
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| Pick your fish, it's weighed in front of you and thrown on the grill |
We hope to see Lisbon someday, indeed
we must. For this trip, however, serendipity has brought us to this sunny
fishing town. I can’t imagine a better first door into Portugal.
