After picking up my little brother in Sevilla we fled the city with its 42°C as quick as possible to head to the coast. Having been driving so much each day for the past few weeks I was keen to get to a place and leave the car on a campground for a few days at least. We picked Ericeira for our first destination since we wanted to do some good surfing and connect to other travellers. Portugal had been recommended to me by many friends and acquaintances to be a place I would love Ericeira seemed to offer everything my brother and I were looking for to settle for a wee while. There were skateparks, surf spots and the appropriate shops as well as supposedly a lot of like-minded travellers. I found the city to be more occupied by branded surfers and middle-class families, but the vibe was great. The guy we bought some local chocolate from told us a lot about the living youth there who seem to have an absolute ball. The camping we stayed longer than we initially planned was alright, there were not as many real surfer souls then I was hoping for, and they made a huge scene not classifying our build up lodgy as a camper, but we got in in the end and I was so happy to leave the car in one place for almost a week. We surfed every day, had cold drinks in Vibes Bar & Café with amazing live music and I was working on this very website quite a bit sitting over the skate park at Boardriders.
Prior to our coming here I was a little worried about finding places to park for the night, but it turned out to be quite alright and much better than the Basque country. After we had enough of the high life in the city and didn’t want to pay for the expensive camping anymore, we moved south along the coast. A little south of Sines we found a decent Parking lot right in front of the beach and two surf spots where we were able to spend the nights with few other Campers. The road was pretty calm at night and neither the town Sines nor the surf shop to rent board are very far away.
Next, we headed a little further south to Carrapateira a cute little town near Bordeira where we spend the night in a parking lot on the cliffs above the beautiful wide playa de Bordeira. In the morning some ladies were getting mad at a camper family who had set up tents and blocked a parking space they wished to park in but other than that it was a quiet and beautiful place to spend the night. Just stay a little low key maybe cause camping is officially not allowed. The waves rolling in all along the sandy beach supposed to be quite nice and there is a surf school situated right on the sand near the water. On the day we were there it was a messy but strong surf in small waves from all directions. A few groups were playing in the white water, but we decided it would not be worth the 40€ for rentals and kept driving in the hope for waves in Sagres.
We checked some Spots around Sagres and finally parked the car in front of Playa da Mareta. From here we could walk to the beaches and surf shop in town. The surf was alright and there are several nice cafes in town where we could treat us to some nice food, cocktails and I spend some hours on the laptop working on my website setup. This was a nice balance for the last days of our trip, and I enjoyed the vibe here far more than in Ericeira though for our timing the waves in Ericeira were inarguably better.
From Sagres we drove back to Sevilla from where my brother would catch a plane back to Germany. He was getting tired of traveling after some weeks hiking in east Germany and the trip around Europe and Portugal. Also, this was his first big travel since he just finished school in the summer, and I was so happy that we could share part of this amazing adventure for the both of us. I dropped him off after quickly checking out the abandoned military base near the Airport. A huge areal with many abandoned houses and other buildings, the thick concrete structures are mostly intact, and the unprotected place is visibly home to all sorts of activities form BB-gunmatches to parties. Then I made my way over to Madrid to meet the girls from my beloved Edinburgh family for the hen due shenanigans.
