Date Visited: February 2013

Date Written:  January 14th 2015

I get off of my bus from Lisbon and wander out into a town with quite a strong feel of abandonment.  Not in a permanent way, but Nazare in a beach town, and beach towns in winter, even Portuguese winters, are often abandoned.

There’s no hostels in Nazare in the winter so I head up from the central plaza near the beach to Hotel Mare (35 CAD per night for a double room).  I check in and enjoy some pizza from just across the street before settling in for the night.

The next morning I head down to one of many impressive beaches nearby Nazare, this one right along the main promenade of town.  It’s still mostly abandoned but as the huge waves roll in from the wild eastern Atlantic Ocean I take a seat and loose myself in the soundscape.  A few seabirds circle above in a bright blue sky.

After a while spent reading I head back into the idyllic beachside town and find some lunch before climbing up through the town to the funicular which takes you up to the secondary part of the city up on the dramatic cliffside which cuts through the middle of Nazare.

I climb out and see a very literal sign which makes me smile.

Continuing along, I head down the hill towards the cliffside promenade to a castle perched dramatically on the outcropping rocks, but before I get there it starts pouring rain, so instead of continuing, I find shelter in a small but very beautiful church, and end up perched on their balcony writing the very beginning of Disappearing Eyes, a book I’m just now sending out to publishers.

Finally the driving rains stops and I continue with my original plan.  The people all around me are pretty bundled up and with the wind even I have my coat on, though 5-10 degrees is damn nice temperatures for February for me.

As I leave the town behind and head off to the edge of the cliff the views just get better and better.  On my left is the lower city and a perfect crescent beach where I spent the morning.

Straight ahead is an impressive castle like building nestled into the rocks being buffeted by the rough seas.

And to the right perhaps the nicest beach I’ve encountered.  It’s endless, and waves are towering, making it a sought after surf destination in the summer.  The beach is so impression that I ended up much later on setting some important scenes of Disappearing Eyes there.

I head down to the castle and then down onto the rocks and leave the path behind climbing closer to the spray of the crashing waves.  The dark rocks are slick and I have to be careful as the frozen spray starts to drench me.  I climb back up and watch the ocean roll in before climbing back up to the top and then descending to the seemingly endless beach just outside of town.

As I climb down through the rocks I find a hidden enclave in the stone a circular opening with a small beach and waves rushing in.  There I find a perch in the rocks and do some more writing before taking a long walk down the entirely empty beach.  At this point, work is calling so I head back to town and too my hotel to spend the night marking papers.  6 hours later I get to go to sleep.

The pattern is more or less repeated the next day and then I have to return to Lisbon for my flight back to Bradford and another half term of tough but always interesting classroom experiences in the U.K.