There are no two ways about it, Sagres is a surf town. On every street corner we either ran into a surf shop, surf school, surf camp, surfer hotel/hostel/b&b, or another surfer related enterprise. For a town of less than 2000 people (last census in 2021 placed it a 1894) either none of them own a surf board and they all go surfing every day or Sagres is one of the prime surf towns in Portugal (our bet is on the latter). The feeling of the town is very much laidback, so even if we’re very much not surfers, it’s absolutely in line with the relaxing time we were looking for.
We started our very relaxed day with coffee and cinnamon rolls at 📍Picnic. It highlighted another oddity of surfer town culture, a lot of shops that are not drinking or dinning establishments are open sunrise to sunset. Picnic even takes the time to update their opening hours on Google Map to reflect that. For example, today they are open from first light at 06:44 to last light at 20:43.
We continued on the relaxed theme and went for our Italian breakfast with pizza at 📍Arte Bianca. They delivered the pizza on point and it was all the fuel we’ll need for our day of lazing about on a beach.
By the time we were done with coffee, breakfast and packing our essentials for the beach, we made our way there at a little past 14:30. We originally were a touch worried that it wouldn’t be comfortable because of the windy conditions (another thing the town is known for) but 📍Praia da Mareta is in a bay surrounded by cliffs and oriented in a way to cut most of the dominant winds. We found some chairs and umbrellas available, paid our 20€, laid down in the warmth and enjoyed ourselves. It very much felt like a beach day on the Mediterranean with the clear water, sandy beach and the people laying around baking in the sun. The only difference being that the Atlantic Ocean is much cooler than the Mediterranean Sea, so getting in the water is a little more of a challenge.
We enjoyed the sun for a little under two hours listening to audiobooks, then made the supreme effort of getting our ass off the chair and walking the 20 steps to the beach bar for a glass of wine and water with a view over our former beach spot. It’s been a gruelling day, we deserved our relaxation time after all.
Slightly buzzed from the drink and all of the sun we headed home, showered off all of the sand that inevitably clung to us while on the beach and headed back out to 📍The Hangout. In town, it offers snacks and drinks, perfect for our needs : we did want to sample more wine but we definitively needed to put something in our stomach to slow down the absorption of alcohol a little. The bruschetta and wine made the perfect combo.
We dined at 📍Restaurante Carlos. It is known for its traditional seafood cuisine according to our research. We were forced to concur that it does seafood very well. We had the seafood rice, something we had on our Portugal food bingo card for this trip. Turns out it’s seafood in a bouillon with rice thrown in there. It makes everything full of the flavour from the spice and seafood but also somewhat messy to eat. The rice to bouillon ratio is too much on the rice side to call it soup but too much bouillon to call it a rice or risotto. It’s in that uncomfortable middle. They serve it in a casserole with a plate for each guest. Bowls would have been much better and somewhat safer for our clothes. It’s an experience to live and we’re happy we’ve marked it on our bingo card. I’m sure it makes for great comfort food. Karine had a piece of Algarve pie, layers of carob biscuit, fig filling and an almond layer similar to a pecan pie. A delicious mix of flavors according to her.