Fortress São Miguel Arcanjo - Nazaré | Portugal

Hello everyone :)

Today we are going to visit a very specific and world-renowned place on the Portuguese coast.
Located on the central coast of Portugal, Nazaré is an excellent place to visit, to eat and to catch some "small waves", stroll through the narrow streets, climb the century-old Ascensor and admire the whole city from the "Sítio" Viewpoint.

In the past, the city was known for its beaches, fishermen and the women with the seven skirts, always with a smile proclaiming loud and clear in the streets about the houses for rent with handmade posters, i still remember these old ladies from early age :)
We could watch the fishermen arriving from the sea on their trawlers and the fish was cooked right there and then sold.

The coast is incredible, it has a beach that you can lose sight of and the water is very crystal clear and cold too.
At the top of the promontory, we can find this "Sítio", a place for devotees of "Nossa Senhora da Nazaré" and the Viewpoint, but it's not just religion that moves crowds to this place.
Nowadays, surfers and tourists from every corner of the planet travel to Praia do Norte (beach) in order to catch the biggest wave in the world and who knows how to break the new world record, others just to watch such a great show and others just to stroll.

Arriving at the Viewpoint, we go down to the Fort of São Miguel Arcanjo. Going down with the wind that was felt seemed almost an impossible mission, as the feeling was that we were being pushed backwards.
In Portugal there is a saying that is " Going down, all the saints help!" , but here was certainly not the case.
On the way down we can see Praia do Norte where Garrett McNamara in 2011 surfed the biggest wave in the world, 23,77 meters high and also the Lighthouse of Nazaré (which started operating on December 1, 1903).

This event put Nazaré on the lips of the world and projected its image across borders.
Currently, the world record belongs to surfer Sebastian Steudtner who managed to catch a wave 26,21 meters high (86 feet), in this same place, Praia do Norte.
Certainly and demonstrably, in this place there are waves much bigger than those that help surfers break record after record, but not everyone can surf them, and when they do, another record is broken there.

We entered the Fort, which has been open to the public since 2015 and it was possible to see several boards autographed by the greatest surfing legends inside, which were offered as a tribute to the city and its residents.

There is also a room at the entrance that explains the phenomenon of Canhão da Nazaré (Nazaré Cannon) or Cana da Nazaré, which is nothing more than an immense submarine canyon of tectonic origin, approximately 200 km long and 5 km deep, it is the largest canyon submerged in Europe, located off the coast of Nazaré and is related to the Nazaré-Pombal fault.
This cannon, as it is known, is the source of these gigantic waves and which at the moment end up being the main tourist attraction, standing out in front of everything that Nazaré has to offer.

The fort is located right on the edge of the cliff and despite being perfectly restored and robust, all that sea hustle turns out to make anyone passing by a little uncomfortable with the obvious exposure to natural elements.

At least i felt, and even imagining what that place would be like in the middle of one of those storms that raise the waves to absurd heights.
After visiting the fort and giving way to the huge number of people who continued to arrive, we decided that it was time to leave and it was at that moment that the idea of having to go all the way back to the starting point, as it would be a mini marathon always going uphill.
We had no doubt what the return would be like when we left and outside the fort there was a queue of tuk tuks ready to provide their services to those who, like us, no longer had the necessary breath or intended to save a few bucks :P

And this was our visit to this crazy cool spot :)
That´s all for today, hope you like it

Photo by @aleister
Camera - Canon EOS 600D
Lens - EFS 18-55mm / 70-300mm
Location - Portugal

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Value your time, because every fraction counts, and the price of anything is the amount of life you trade for it.
May the memories of the travels be eternalized in the photographs, and may the photographs transport us back to the travels ;)