Nazaré

We did a podcast recently, and she talked about the festivals that come in to Figuera de Fage.

You know, Nazaré doesn't have as much of that.

What they do have going for them, though, is the surf.

So that's the big thing that happens in the winter.

Here's what

I'll say from my perspective, visiting both and having been fairly recently to both.

Ericeira to me feels like a place that has better quality infrastructure compared to Nazaré.

And I'm not saying either are great or it makes a massive difference.

Now, this is a strange tangent, but I think it's connected in a way that I hope I'll bring together in the general arc of this.

We went to the beach two days before, north of Nazaré, in a small beach resort, and suddenly there was a topless woman, and that's really unusual in Portugal.

It caused a bit of a stir on the beach, a woman bathing topless.

know i i don't think it's a surprise to say that i didn't find that as disturbing as i did a naked man in the metro you know we're talking about nakedness here aren't we in culture and states of undress and what that means and interestingly we have just got the burka ban introduced in portugal as well where there's a demand to uncover so we've got a level of coveredness uncoveredness context being important uh consent being important uh with all of this so on the one level you know you've got a new law which says don't cover up we need to see your face from point of view of safety and security and it's not just burke because it's balaclavas as well as any face covering and i believe now within the law people can be asked to uncover so you can see who they are, which includes the burqa, which would include a motorcycle helmet, balaclava, any other kind of face covering.

Oh, that's an interesting comparison.

Yeah, because to the general public sitting safely on the beach, a guy paddling into a 60-foot wall of water at Nazare looks like a pure adrenaline junkie with a death wish.

It looks so reckless.

Right, it looks like madness.

You got the global entry.

All those little things allow me to get to someplace really quick and stress-free because I've had it where you land that afternoon, let's say in Nazare, Portugal, and the next day it's 50 foot and you got to compete.

And so then you have to deal with jet lag.

And then the

It's very much a place where still most restaurants that you go into, you'll hear Portuguese being spoken, your cafes, things like that.

It's similar to the area that I'm in here near to Obidos and Nazaré.

Was that a deliberate decision to choose something that had a bit more of an authenticity to it? Was that something that you did deliberately or was it just something that kind of happened?

Both actually.