Sitting in a Fourth-Rate Bar in a Two-Bit Town Drinking Third-Class Beer

It’s all Rick Steves’ fault, the knee-biter.  He’s capital at many things, but his home base town choices are lacking.  Years ago when I was touring Wales, I set up in the small town of Ruthin, highly recommended by Rick, and found it to be a dead boring place.  Now here I was sitting in Nazare, on the coast of Portugal, again because for some reason Rick recommended it.  I never learn.

I walked unsteady to the bar to order yet another Superbock beer, and then return to scribbling in my notebook while listening to the Alan Parsons Project play on the bar’s speakers.  There’s nothing else to do here.

I had just spent some time in Lisbon, a very fun city with cheap food and great nightlife.  From there, I headed north in a rental car to the region of Estremadura, only a few hours away.  Estremadura was chosen because there are a zillion little things to see around there, because it’s not too far, and because there’s lots of info on it.  The medium-size town of Nazare sits right on the coast very near to three popular little half-day-trip destinations:  the small towns of Alcobaça, Batalha, and Obidos, along with several other small cute towns that might be worth a stop if there’s time.  Nazare is also close to Fatima, but I had no intention of going there.  I didn’t need a miracle.  Nazare was chosen as my home base because it’s close to all these, and it sounded like a neat coastal town.

Rick Steves says this about Nazare in his guidebook:  “I got hooked on Nazaré back when colorful fishing boats littered its long, sandy beach. …  Today Nazaré’s beach is littered with frolicking families, and it seems that most of the town’s 10,000 inhabitants are in the tourist trade. But I still like the place.  …  Off-season Nazaré is almost empty of tourists—inexpensive, colorful, and relaxed, with enough salty fishing-village atmosphere to make you pucker.”

And perhaps that’s what clinched it.  The place is very popular, a seaside town that could have gone full-throttle tourist a while ago, but supposedly retains its own, old character, full of women wearing the traditional seven-layer style of dress, fishing boats painted some traditional way, and so forth.  “There are no sights in Nazare; the town itself is the attraction,” Rick concludes.  Yeah, well.  The town is still one-third geared to tourists.

[Full disclosure:  I like Rick Steves, I use his guidebooks still, and I would recommend him.  I just don’t take his home base advice any more.]

Nazare has a nice waterfront, and beach.  That’s about it.

Perhaps it was the time of year, late October, not completely off-season, but nowhere near the peak.  During July, Nazare is surely flooded with visitors, every café and bar and ice-cream stand packed, and I would instead be writing a story about how tourist towns suck because of the tourists.  Instead, I’m sitting thinking how seaside tourist towns are dead without the tourists.  I can’t win.

At least in July I’d have some drinking buddies.  I was on my second evening there.  The main seaside drag, Avenue da Republica, was torn up, under construction, and that was a bit of a downer.  My cheap flophouse, Hotel Cubata, was on the farthest north end of the town.  The hotel people were friendly, especially tolerant of my late-night attempts to get the wi-fi working, and the room was large enough but very unexciting.  It only had one small window in a niche at the far end of the room, so it felt claustrophobic and I hated spending time there.

Nazare has a sharp cliff, perhaps an escarpment, almost right in back of my hotel, at least 100 meters high.  The top part is called the Sítio, and it has a few sights but I never got up there.  After seeing the lower town, the higher town never seemed worth it.  The funicular to the top wasn’t free and didn’t run all the time, so I could just imagine being stuck up there for an hour waiting to get down.  I’ve seen photos of the view of the town from there, and it’s not all that.

My first act in Nazare was brilliant, in a move that showed why Portugal in general is wonderful.  The Avenue da Republica faces a wide sandy beach with rocky hills to the north and south.  I walked along and stopped in a beachside café full of locals and asked for a half-bottle of wine and some cheese.  I just marched in the place and asked, no menu checking or anything.  That’s what I want; can you guys do it?  One middle-aged guy, running the place, just listened and dealt with me, nor worries.  He chose the wine, the cheese, and how to present it and it all was beautiful.  The wine of course was quite fine, the cheese a soft, white, slightly running, just perfect, on a small plate with a thoughtful toothpick to eat it and of course the price was reasonable.  How wonderful when one can trust the products and people like this.

Simple pleasures

Sitting there, taking photos of the sun coming down over the water, the cliffs in the distance to the south, the volleyball players in the sand, the silhouettes in front of the sun, it seemed good.  When you’re on the west coast of Portugal, you get the sunset.  A little seafood snack addition would have made it complete, and perhaps some good-looking people in front of me to watch, but one shouldn’t be too greedy.

And then a damn French family comes along with their ice cream cones, settling in next to me and trying to ruin everything.  Paradise wasn’t meant to last.

The back streets of Nazare are awfully confusing, with seemingly no street running straight more than a few blocks.  I stopped and helped one car back out, a woman who was having trouble.  I did the “m’on back” movements for her for several points, and then she drove off without a thank you or even a wave.

My eating place in Nazare was Restaurante Conchinha da Nazaré, on Rua de Leiria 17, because their specialty sounded amazing, and it was.  Not really a restaurant or even a café, more like a cantina.  One square room with six tables.  Futebol on TV, Porto (the city) was playing, and the side wall lined with chairs totally taken up by middle-aged men watching the game.  Locals, with cloth caps that are sort of berets but not, the badge of the working man.  Shirts, pink, that are unbuttoned around their paunches.  Missing teeth.  I sat in front of them, asked about the teams, tried to relax and fit in, and I mostly succeeded, in my opinion.  They may differ.  Clearly, it’s a hangout.  They may be here every night.  They’re not eating, not really even drinking, just hanging out.

I was eating açorda de marisco, thick bread stew with seafood.  Like a rice dish except with shredded bread instead of the rice.  It’s still liquidly, but the bread soaks up much of it.  About ten shrimp were placed carefully on top, stuck into the stew, and a raw egg yolk placed on top in the middle.  It’s still Portugal, and one can eat quite well.  I was drinking a half-liter of wine, and was there so long and ate so much stew that I ordered another half.  Two euro each.  A full liter is three.

Açorda de marisco.  The food, at least, was brilliant.

The next evening, after doing some day trips elsewhere, I wandered far and wide around Nazare looking for several recommended restaurants.  They all were closed or gone, and thus I found myself back in the previous night’s place.  I ordered the full liter of wine right off the bat that time, along with a different seafood dish.  This cute local restaurant didn’t seem so cute this time.  The colorful local guys on the side wall had an argument, where I believe the owner came out to basically say “take it outside,” which they did, with one guy coming back to the doorway to yell inside a bit.  The owner seemed a bit unbalanced as well and I was ready to leave.

So far life is bearable, but after dinner here in Nazare, life stops.  There’s nothing going on here.  I find what looks like a bar, called “Lift”, and I’m surrounded by people drinking coffee.  About nine people inside, all sipping espresso.  A further eight more at tables outside, all with coffees, all watching another futebol game.  I sat on the side and became the lone person to order a beer, receiving a tiny, skinny glass.  Ten minutes later, the Arsenal vs. Bayen-Munich game finishes (Arsenal 2-0), and most everyone leaves.  Only three people remain.  Empty coffee cups all around, and the lone employee changes the sound system from the TV to music.  The wankers who remain are still smoking, as they are everywhere in Portugal.  What are the EU laws on this?

I’m back in a place called “Look”, just a few blocks away from the coffee bar.  Look is somewhat of a pool hall where nobody is playing pool.  The place is sizeable, and there’s maybe five people present, blowing smoke everywhere.  I order the local beer, called Superbock.  I’ll be drinking several.  It’s typical local beer everywhere in the world in that the locals think it’s great but really it’s a generic, undistinguished lager.  The blonde across from me leans in, showing serious cleavage.  In such a place, you can be part of the scenery.  Why fade away when you can be part of the attraction here?

There are some little ways that a small town bar is neat.  It’s a fine line when you’re being so pathetic that you’re cool.  When you the visitor walk into a place like this, often you’re the most clueless person in there or you’re the coolest.  It’s somewhat up to you–to sit in a pathetic bar in a throwaway town, you either have to distain it or own it.  Knowing damn well you’ll be here tomorrow night because what the hell else is there to do?

But sitting in a fourth-rate bar in a two-bit town drinking third-class beer is getting to me, late at night.  Traveling low on the economic scale is good for some things, like sleeping.  I don’t sleep in seriously crappy flophouses anymore, only going down to perhaps a third-rate flophouse instead of a fourth.  My little hotel here, which is not bad at all, was only costing me around €30.  I do that to save money for other things, such as hanging out in higher places, but that’s not an option here.  Sometimes going local means sharing their unadorned, boring life.  This is what the locals here do at night and now you too, you authentic traveler, you.

Full disclosure:  This was one of the bars I drank in.  Yep.

This last evening in Nazare, I had been trying to walk around the town doing some photography, night shots, but they’re not coming out so great, and thus here I am in this sad bar having another brew.  Michael Jackson is singing.  “Hold me.”  “Show me you care.”  But sometimes the difference between hating a bar and accepting it is a drink.  The next song is Alan Parsons Project, a band that makes me think of a co-worker back home, a pudgy baby boomer who is always talking about rocking out to 70s bands.

I’d wish for some interesting people, even a scene to watch, but there is none.  Back in Lisbon, no problem.  Nightlife there is some of the best and easiest I’ve seen.  The beautiful and the plain, the older and younger, they all hang together and no one cares.  Now I’m merely in a bar where there’s little to write in your notebook except about yourself, and truly one should resist such urges.

The last thing I did that night was take a walk very far south, past the town center and some main egress drags, into some different architecture.  I wanted to see if I could find trouble, and failed.  I stopped at one more drinking place, a very white somewhat clinical establishment where a large video screen played and no one was around.  Very far south, the buildings changed into more contemporary, and I abandoned my quixotic quest.

Early the next morning, I got the hell out of Nazare.  I drove to Tomar, an even smaller town but one absolutely jumping with activity.  There, I stumbled upon music places, nightlife, a street market, and late-night plates of clams.  Life is good sometimes.

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