Along the west coast of Portugal towards to south

We chose to take the coastal road from Lisbon, rather than the quicker highway inland, as we had time.  The next 8 nights we'd spend in one place on the south coast, so no rush.  However, reading that Vasco da Gama's birthplace, Sines, is nowadays industrial with refineries, we've decided to skip it and joined the coast just south of it.  From here you can see Sines in a distance.  On the horizon were several large tankers.  The scenery reminded me a bit of our own west coast in some areas.  The west coast is also the area where you'll find Portugal's big waves (the area just north of Lisbon being the most famous).  The erosion along the coast line is amazing and everywhere you'll see signs warning you to not go too close.



Madame GPS was a bit confused again, and then we were forced by road signs to take another road than hers due to a deviation.  But I didn't regret, as it was a beautiful road (a bit 'dof' due to the dirty windscreen...).

Our lunch stop was at a very beautiful place, Vila Nova de Milfontes, if I can guess it means the new village of a thousand fountains.  We chose it due to the book describing it as 'one of the loveliest places on Portugal's west coast' and I have to agree.  The river Mira forms a huge estuary where meeting the ocean.

You might have to enlarge the photo below to see the old castle that was built to protect the area against attacks from the ocean, nowadays a hotel (with a spa where I would love to go one holiday to spend a week, kayaking on the beautiful calm river and being spoilt in the spa).  This was the view from our restaurant where we had sole.  We ate so much fish in Portugal, but it was always good, fresh and sole is so cheap in Portugal, I couldn't believe it. In France you'll pay at least 25€, most of the time more, for sole.  Here we've paid 10€ (for a big plate)!

We've decided to rather skip the next little coastal village we wanted to visit and set the GPS on the fast roat, that took us inland to meet up with the last part of the highway.  The road being on the border of the Alentejo regon, the best wine region in Portugal (although the Douro valley produces good red wines in addition to their porto), and the Algarve region, the southern region with its beautiful beaches.  The scenery changed, it became hilly with farms and very remote.  But still worth a detour from the highway!  The only real problem we've encountered was at the beginning when the GPS took us through the village and all the villagers were having coffee at 3pm (or a festival, we still don't really know, but it was a huge acitivity) with some just parking in the road to drop people, then after the traffic mess we took a wrong road, but fortunately ended up in a ring road going around the town.