Sagres, Praia do Beliche & Cabo de São Vicente
25th – 26th February 2020: Towards the end of the month, we spent a few days in the southwest of Portugal, staying a night in Sagres, home of the lovely Portuguese lager of the same name, and then a couple of nights in the lovely town of Lagos.
This most southwesterly point of Europe and is where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean. It is said that the longest walk by land in the world is from Sagres to Jinjiang in China! You’d be a while: it’s 12,241km long.
The town played a part in the Portuguese explorations of the 15th century and beyond, owing to its location. Prince Henry the Navigator (1394 – 1460) was said to have established a nautical school here, Escola de Sagres, during the first half of the century, to teach techniques related to ocean navigation. It was here that he devised expeditions to the uncharted seas of western Africa.
Fortaleza Sagres: There stands an impressive fortress at the peninsula of Sagres, slightly further on from the town itself. Henry the Navigator ordered the construction of this fortress in the 15th century. It was added to and fortified in the coming centuries, due to its important strategic coastal position. The fortress is unusual in that it only has one wall; on the other three sides, the 60m high cliff tops provide protection. Much of the original fortress was destroyed in the earthquake of 1755 and by the resultant tsunami, which rose higher than the 60m cliffs. The fortress as it stands today was completed in 1793.
the view east from Fortaleza Sagres 
Inside the fortress walls is a replica of the marker stone, the padrão, which was used by Portuguese navigators in the 15th century to mark newly discovered territories. The one here shows the coat of arms of Prince Henry the Navigator.
The church of Santa Maria, Nossa Senhora da Graça (Our Lady of Grace) was constructed at the centre of the fortress site during the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal, early 1500’s.
Travelling beyond Sagres, we stopped next at Praia do Beliche. We don’t surf, but it was fun watching the surfers do their thing!
And then, further along the coast again, the most southwesterly point of the whole of mainland Europe is Cabo de São Vicente. It’s around 6km west of Sagres. Here, the cliffs rise 75m tall from the sea and the lighthouse is one of the most powerful in Europe, standing guard as it does over one of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes. It stands 24m high and its two lamps can be seen as far as 60km away.
Hello again, Atlantic Ocean! Looking up the west coast of Portugal
Cabo de São Vicente is an excellent spot for birdwatching, being home to a wide range of birds that nest on the cliffs, such as the Bonelli’s eagle, peregrine falcons, kites, rock thrushes, rock pigeons, storks and herons.
And there we go; we had travelled along the whole of the south cost of Portugal from east to west. That kept us busy for the month of February!
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Gleoite