A Surfside Spell

OBIDOS, Portugal —  I knew I’d lucked out when I heard there would be a performance of traditional Portuguese music and dance in Obidos’ plaza. We’d spent most of the day looking at shops and churches, and I was ready for some live culture. I figured my 5-year-old son, Kevin, was too.

The performers were late, so we wandered into an artists’ shop to kill time. My husband, Bob, and I scanned the items on display and maybe said hello to the young woman who was busy painting a tile. When we heard the music start up, Bob and I stepped outside. We urged Kevin to join us. But he had no need for music and dance. He had found his own live Portuguese culture.

Kevin stayed by the artist’s side as she finished painting a pair of fish on one tile and began a street scene on another. She was one of the few natives we’d met who spoke English well enough to carry on a conversation. Kevin, though, mostly watched in silence. When she offered him a brush and a tile, he announced he would make a castle, remembering the four or five we’d visited over the past two weeks.

This was Kevin’s first trip to a foreign country, but he adapted pretty well. One day when I saw him slip easily into an impromptu game of soccer with a local boy, I felt both envious and reassured.

We chose Portugal because it sounded interesting, but most of all because it has waves. When you’re a surfer, as Bob is, every vacation is a surfing safari. In true surfer style, we left with no itinerary, no reservations--only a mission to have fun while searching for Portugal’s best waves.

We began in Lisbon, but spent no more time there than it took to rent a car--a Renault hatchback with a rack on the roof for Bob’s surfboard. We drove north out of the capital, then turned west toward the coast. When we crested a hill overlooking the Atlantic, Bob surveyed the waves through his binoculars. This would be our first stop. By chance, we had found Ericeira, too small to be in the guidebook we were using but described in others as the gateway to the world-championship surfing site of Praia da Ribeira de Ilhas.

As we drove into the town of whitewashed houses and cobblestone lanes, the owner of a guest house flagged us down--the surfboard gave us away. The room was fine, and a wide, calm beach was just a short walk from our door. We passed it by, though, for the surfing beach, where Kevin and I ran into the water up to our toes. Even in August, Portugal’s west coast is too cold for swimming without a wetsuit. But Kevin didn’t mind. The sand was fine for building castles. And the cold water discourages the crowds that flock to Portugal’s warmer southern coast.

That evening we ate our first traditional Portuguese dinner. I chose the restaurant for its white stucco facade, iron grillwork and brilliant bougainvillea framing the door. Bob was impressed by the fish--heads, tails and all--slowly cooking on an outside grill. That’s what he ordered: sardines, a staple in Portugal, but fresh and plump and simply done in olive oil and garlic, nothing like the ones in tins.

Omelets were also on the menu in most restaurants we visited. Our fussy child wouldn’t starve.

Surfer magazine described Praia da Ribeira de Ilhas as having one of the best reef breaks in Portugal. When we were there, though, the waves were about two feet high. But somewhere, Bob heard that an Atlantic swell was inbound, so we moved on optimistically.

Our next stop up the rocky coast was Peniche, home to Portugal’s second-largest fishing fleet. We arrived to the sight of workers wrapping decorative lights around telephone poles, assembling carnival rides and adorning boats in anticipation of a two-day religious festival celebrating the Virgin Mary, protector of sailors and fishermen.

Finding a room was tough. I was turned away at five or six guest houses that had filled up with revelers who’d come for the festival a couple of days early. Persistence paid off, though, when I found a room with a private bath and small balcony overlooking the bell tower of a 17th century church.

Of all the forts we visited, Peniche’s was by far the biggest. The 16th century structure offered everything a 5-year-old boy could hope for in a fort--a moat, a drawbridge, turrets, holes for cannons to poke through, even 200-year-old toilets.

The beaches just a few miles outside Peniche appeal to surfers because of their varied swell and wind exposures. Surfers especially value the possibility of offshore winds, which create the challenging tubular waves. If surfers can’t find good waves at one Peniche beach, they usually can find them at another.

Peniche’s dream beach is called Supertubos. The days we visited, though, the tubos were anything but super. But as predicted, Bob found better waves at a nearby beach with a different exposure.

Dinner in Peniche was another occasion for patient exploring. The main street, Avenida do Mar, was lined with restaurants. How to choose? We took our time, peering into the refrigerator cases the eateries had set out on the sidewalk. Each contained an impressively artistic arrangement of fresh squid, octopus, eel, bass, shrimp, cod and sardines. We looked at the menu prices, peeked in at the diners and finally settled on one. It turned out not to be memorable, but getting there was fun.

North of Peniche the road swung inland through rolling hills and farms. We passed men hauling produce to market in donkey-drawn carts and women carrying baskets of rolls and fish on top of their heads. But the altered landscape did nothing to prepare us for the women of Nazare.

We spotted them even before we reached the seaside resort town, sitting in lawn chairs by the side of the road, imploring passing vacationers to stay at their guest houses. Except for an occasional white blouse poking through, each woman was draped from head to toe in black. Dozens more of these scarf-topped elders were working the waterfront, hawking dried fruit, nuts, fish, crabs and rooms for rent to tourists in bikinis and bun-hugger trunks.

Our second day in Nazare we took a cable car up a steep hill to the city’s quieter old quarter. There I visited a tiny whitewashed chapel commemorating a 12th century miracle. According to local legend, on a foggy day in 1182, nobleman Dom Fuas Roupinho was hunting a deer when it ran off the 360-foot cliff. Dom Fuas’ horse stopped short at the edge with its front legs hanging in midair. The Virgin appeared, pulling horse and rider to safety.

We passed through Figueira da Foz, one of the venues for the 1996 World Surfing Championship, but didn’t stay because the waves were small and the boxy hotels and condos along the waterfront robbed the city of any charm it once might have had.

One day we ventured off the blue highways into the city of Porto, which Outside magazine ranked among the world’s 10 best for outdoors enthusiasts to live in. We can’t understand why. Surf magazine more accurately described Porto as suffering from polluted air and beaches spoiled by sewage and industrial waste. I did enjoy a winery tour in this city that gave its name to Port, though.

Our northernmost destination was Viana do Castelo, once an important trading port, just south of the Spanish border. When we arrived, I followed my usual routine of walking through the heart of town to find a room. That was all it took to fall in love. I was particularly taken by the town’s massive plaza, with its outdoor cafes and fountain and lively air. A pair of drummers, their dreadlocks swaying, pounded furiously on bongos. Women with nose rings and long silk skirts sold beaded jewelry in front of the 16th century town hall.

We happened to arrive at the start of a free weeklong jazz festival. Three nights in a row, we sat in the cobblestone square and were treated to performances by a Dixieland band, a jazz quartet and a jazz band from Cuba.

One of my favorite pastimes in foreign countries is visiting cemeteries. While Kevin and Bob napped one afternoon, I explored the one in Viana. The tightly clustered monuments adorned with crosses, lanterns, silk flowers and photographs have a character not seen in our simple gray headstones. Ornate family mausoleums built to look like miniature churches formed the graveyard’s boundaries. I looked into one that bore the date 1853. One of the wooden coffins had rotted away; inside was a black plastic sheet. Curiosity tempted me to reach through the iron bars and poke the sheet. Sensibility intervened.

Viana has a beach that’s popular with sailboarders, a short ferry ride from the city’s waterfront. Its pristine board-surfing beaches are hidden away, several miles out of town. We spent an enchanted day at Bica beach (also called Afife). The sand was unusually fine, and the water as clear as in the Bahamas. Bob lucked into 6-foot waves, the biggest he surfed in Portugal.

Kevin loved Bica, too. It had a restaurant with Foosball.

On our drive back to Lisbon, we ventured inland to spend a night in Obidos. This tiny village once was a seaside fortress, completely enclosed by a high wall. When its bay silted up, the town was left to itself. Today it is a jewel of fairy-tale architecture--Moorish, medieval, Renaissance--and a big draw for tourists.

When Kevin saw people walking on top of the wall, he had to try it himself. I reluctantly agreed to take him, and almost forgot my fear of falling off the unfenced side when I looked at the vista of red barrel-tile rooftops on one side and farmland on the other. Nearby cherry orchards gave the air a mildly fruity smell.

The orchards also give Obidos a very sweet liqueur called ginja, which we sampled after dinner.

Obidos turned out to be a good finale to our two weeks of rambling. By bedtime, when the hordes of day-trippers had left, a deep quiet fell over the village, leaving us with the sense that time really never changed here.

A week later, I was back home in Florida sorting through photos I thought might capture that spirit. None really seemed to do the trick. But a package that arrived in the mail came close. It was postmarked Obidos. Inside I found a familiar painting of a castle on a square tile, fired to a shine.

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GUIDEBOOK: Coasting Portugal

Getting there: There are no direct flights from LAX to Lisbon. Airlines with connecting service but no change of carrier include Continental, TWA, Lufthansa, Swissair, British Airways and Air France. Summer fares start at $1,020.

Where to stay: Most days we found lodgings by just walking around and looking for guest-house signs--pensao or reside^ncial. All were clean, some were charming, most had shared baths and cost around $30 per night. A few that stand out in memory:

In Peniche, Reside^ncial Maciel, Rua Jose Este^va~o 38. Telephone 011-351-62- 784685. Some employees speak English.

In Obidos, Albin Martins Gregorio de Castro, Rua Direita 41, tel. 011-351-62- 959834.

In Viana do Castelo, Reside^ncial Terra Linda, Rua Luis Jacome 13; tel. 011- 351-58-828981. Owner speaks some English.

Where to surf: Surfer magazine publishes surf condition reports on sites around the world, $6 per copy. Tel. (949) 496-5922, fax (949) 496-7849.

For more information: Portuguese National Tourist Office, 590 Fifth Ave., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10036; tel. (800) 767-8842 or (212) 354-4403, fax (212) 764-6137, Internet https://www.portugalinsite.pt.