Saturday, May 20, 2023

Across the water to Comporta

A relaxed itinerary today:


We cross the estuary to Tróia by ferry and cycle along the peninsula - with sand dunes on the Atlantic side and lagoons and marsh areas on the other: the Herdade da Comporta.

We stop at the picturesque beach of Comporta (before the main town) where, despite nothing being open (yet), a lovely woman opens her little beach shack and we have a nice coffee - but also the most expensive in the whole of Portugal - 3€ each!

Nice timber walkway from here into Comporta itself with attractive wetlands.

We detour to Carrasqueira, an old fishing community where you can still see traditional reed houses and narrow fishing boats moored on the mud flats nearby: the Porto Palafita.



Lots of rice paddies too: the biggest in Portugal - and kept green by a crisscross of irrigation canals.

All very picturesque! Had our packed lunch here admiring this very interesting landscape.

Very sandy track out of there as we head back to Comporta, testing both bike skills and patience. Back in Comporta, we look to have a Blueberry Caipirosca; settled for a blackberry one.

The township of Comporta is very resorty. We saw most of it by the time we finished searching for a supermarket - takes about 10-15 mins to get around it by bike. It is the hangout of well-connected Lisboans, Parisians, Brazilians (the Casiraghis, Sarkozy …).

We cycle the N261 for the final 7 kms to our accommodation which is out of Comporta. It is quite hot now. Had picked up a pizza and a bottle of red for dinner as we left; I must say I felt like Uber Eats as I rode along with our dinner strapped to the luggage rack on the back of the bike!!

We settle into our nice accommodation and sit out in our ground-level garden to enjoy the evening and a glass of red - and plan / google map our route for tomorrow (although that didn't last long as MF fell asleep sitting up -  at 5:30 in the afternoon ...!


We discovered a bar open right next door (when we thought there was nothing here!); enjoyed apple cake and icecream and a drink! Also caught the sun setting!



Cycled:37 kms


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