Silver Coast Summary

We spent 15 nights on the Silver Coast of Portugal, an area near the coast north of Lisbon but south of Porto, staying all 15 nights in Sao Martinho do Porto.   We stayed in a rented vrbo condo very close to the north peninsula point just outside the main center of Sao Martinho.  It was about a 2min walk from the condo to the fishing promenade of Sao Martinho.   It was late winter and start of spring so the weather was variable.  Daytime high temperatures were mostly in the 14-17 degrees C range, more cloud than sun during the day.   It did climb above 20C a couple of days.   It was cool in the nights and early mornings, there were occasional rain showers that might last from minutes to maybe an hour or two, but never an all day kind.   We commonly dressed in layers, light long or short sleeve or under layer, maybe puffer vest and light gore tex rain jacket (not necessarily for rain but for wind break when along the coastal areas where there is often a cool breeze).  I think this is about average weather for this time of year in this area of Portugal.

It was a great two weeks of adventure.   We spent a nice amount of time, scattered among different days walking around Sao Martinho town, nearby hills and paths and beaches as well as us doing a number of great day trips to other towns.   

The day trips included:

-Caldas da Rainha (multiple times as this is the best place in the area for groceries at supermarkets and also daily local outdoor produce market, etc.)  

-Alcobaca (two trips)

-Batalha

-Fatima

-Nazare (multiple trips)

-Leiria

-Foz do Arelho

-Peniche & Baleal

-Bombarrel (Budda Eden Garden)

-Tomar

-Porto de Mos 

-Grutas da Moeda

Some of these visits only lasted a few hours while others were the better part of a day.

All of the towns visited were very interesting and had different appealing characteristics.   I think we would not hesitate to recommend visiting any of these places.   Most of these towns, except maybe Nazare and Fatima were not very touristy and there were very few tourists anywhere, given the time of year.  This made it great to have a day trip lunch in each place, getting great value with the prato do dia (menu meal of the day) at different restaurants.   This is common on many restaurant menus in Portugal and usually includes a main dish, sometimes salad, dessert and a drink and coffee.  The cost of all of that per person usually ranged from 9-12 Euros.

There was a world tour surfing event in Peniche when we were there that did attract a significant number tourists at that time.  There are also more tourists in Nazare, attracted by the  publicity around large wave surfing.

Two common sites to visit in many towns in Portugal are the churches and the castles.   We visited lots of those.

The beaches.  Although not beach weather most days, though we did have a couple of great weather days, we still did visit a number of beautiful beaches in different weather, just to take in the sites and go for walks.  The beaches in Portugal vary greatly in terrain and landscape, from low lying with sand dunes to surroundings of spectacular cliffs.  Here are the beaches we visited:

-Town beach in Sao Martinho do Porto (Praia da Sao Martinho do Porto)

-Praia da Gralha

-Praia do Salgado

-Praia do Norte

-Praia da Nazare

-Praia da Foz do Arelho

-Praia Beleal Norte

-Praia Beleal Sul

-Praia dos Supertubos

-Praia do Sao Sebastiao

We did lots of driving in this area.  Our odometer said we drove about 1,366km, from time of pick up of the rental car to when we left the Silver Coast.  The roads were quite good, of course the toll roads, which we did use regularly, are exceptional, but locals roads were not busy and we had no problem using these quite frequently.  You just need to master how to enter and exit a roundabout!  The toll roads are four lane divided highway with speed limit of 120 km/hr.  Local roads are undivided two lanes, with lots of roundabouts and speed limits of 50-70km/hr.

The older people you would encounter in this area of Portugal don’t always speak great english, but without exception, everybody we met among the local Portugal people were very friendly and helpful.  They do speak better english than we do Portuguese.   It is like they have an extra appreciation for visitors in this area as they do not get as many tourists as maybe Lisbon, the Algarve or Porto, but they do welcome and appreciate visitors.

You might notice we did not visit Coimbra.  We did not get that far north on the silver coast as it was about 2 hours drive north of Sao Martinho and we had visited and stayed overnight in Coimbra on a previous trip to Portugal.  The other notable town we did not visit in this area is Obidos.  That is because we had visited it twice before on previous trips to Portugal.   Both of these towns, Coimbra and Obidos are great places to visit.  

We visited Nazare multiple times, as it was fairly close to Sao Martinho, mainly to try and catch a view of some big wave surfers, but we managed only to see medium height waves and no big wave surfers, oh well.   We had stayed in Nazare on two previous trips to Portugal and have seen some big wave surfers on one of those visits.  

So, moving onward from the Silver Coast area, we will go to the Algarve Region, with a brief one night stop in a small town called Alcacer do sal along the journey.    If you find the day trip reports interesting, stay tuned.