Praia do Malhão

We decided to have fun during our weekend and therefore we drove down the Portuguese coast to the Praia do Malhão where we camped for a night. It is an amazing place. The beaches are linked and therefore we had long walks by the ocean. We had several reasons for escaping Lisbon: we still hadn't had any vacations, and we were trying to enjoy the weekends and the summer, and most of all, Portugal was not going to play for the first place in the World Cup 2006, so what was the point of staying at home and watch a game against Germany just to get the 3rd place??

When we got there this is how it looked like:


We had to relax with such a beautiful setting. Watching the sunset it always a magic moment.


Sunday we woke up, and the temperatures were super high. The only way to be was by the ocean where we could dive every 5 minutes. This part of the southwestern Portuguese coast is a long belt of protected area, constituting a long National Park. Therefore construction near the ocean is forbidden and several projects are being developed to protect and recover the dunes.






This is a small freshwater ending at the beach. The wall at the end had hundreds of bird nests (wish André was here to tell me which species exactly)… it was beautiful!












Sand castles are so magical



It was almost full moon and it was coming up at that time in late afternoon:


The vegetation in this dune system is simply amazing and very diverse. There are several endemic species here that merely by chance are not run over by people on their way to the beach.










The day is almost over ... but we still get this amazing gift of a sunset in the ocean!


The Institute for Nature Conservation (ICN) has been increasing the efforts on Environmental Education, raising people's awareness on the importance of this system and what they are trying to protect and restore. I can't believe that I do not have the photo for the fish and birds poster they had there ... maybe I will have to go back :o)


A small map of where we were ... search for it on Google Earth!