A day at the beach!

The other day, on our way to Coimbra, while watching the ocean speed by us, Mario and I noticed a very long, very nice-looking boardwalk running along a good part of the beach, weaving in and out of the dunes. I made a note of it in my guidebook when we reached the next station, especially since it was located relatively close to the beach, for us to return here. Today, the opportunity presented itself to take advantage of our discovery, given the warm weather and sun peaking through the clouds, and visit the ocean for a while. We hopped a local train, for the same price as a coffee by the way, and headed out.

We arrived in the coastal town of Espinho, and walked no more than 2 streets over and the beach spread out before us like a giant, welcoming, warm blanket. Some people were out, mostly with dogs in tow, also taking advantage of the mild day for a stroll. A few fishermen lined the water, perched on the rocks of a breaker, trying their luck against a fairly violent sea. We've been seeing a lot of nasty weather lately, with more to come, and it was very visible in the temperament of the waves. Crests of 15 feet broke straight up into the air upon impact, sending frothy surf along the sand and around our feet. It was immense and powerful and made you really respect the edges of the walkway!
We made our way to the start of the Boardwalk out of Espinho, but not before hitting the grocery store for the makings of a delicious picnic. We found a nice spot on a high dune above the water, alone on our stretch of beach, and tucked into slices of cheese and chourico, pieces of apple and Morcela - a blood sausage, a local specialty. We sipped vinho verde straight from the bottle, and I think it tasted even sweeter because of it. Our only company were the waves, and an errant poochie that snuck up without warning, sniffed the sweet air a moment, then disappeared again.

After lunch we continued walking until we reached a break in the sand, where we assumed the next town, and next train station were. Unfortunately, a quick look down the rail line showed no sign of a station, and rather than continuing for what could be an eternity of walking, we retreated back to Espinho and the station we knew was there. Of course, once we boarded the train back to Porto, we realized that the next station, Granja, was only another 500m from where we had stopped searching. Figures!