Spend a Beach Day With Us

Food, Fitness & Fun at Praia da Rocha Beach, Portimão

Every morning we go for a walk on the beach here. It’s about a 3.5 mile walk total when we can go the full length of the beach at low tide. This morning the tide was higher than we’ve experienced yet, so our walk was shorter than usual. Bonus, though: in addition to the inordinate amount of stairs (80 each direction) we have to traverse to get to and from the beach, today we had to crawl through a cave to get to the next section, where normally we just walk around some rocks. It was a workout.

Click to see our Beach Walk on YouTube.

We usually go at 8:30-9:00 AM, and there are rarely more than a handful of people on the beach. After the first couple days here, the weather has been spectacular for our walks, around 75F. It gets up to about 84F in the hottest part of the day, but not much humidity and the breeze from the ocean makes it perfect.

After our walk today we had some breakfast, then headed back to the beach for some relaxing Kindle time.

Rocking the bikini and sun-readers

Yep, I’m wearing a bikini. I bought it here after I saw women of all shapes and sizes enjoying the beach in far less fabric than this. Life lesson from my European sisters: Life is short and your beach body is simply the body you bring to the beach.

We also had a morning visit from our seagull friend, Gustavo. He now shows up for breakfast and dinner.

Our handsome mooch, Gustavo

After washing off our day at the beach, (so much sand!), we headed back to the grocery store to pick up some items for dinner.

Speaking of dinner, last night was the food highlight of the trip so far. We had a reservation at Restaurant F, a Michelin Guide recommendation. It features creative, modern Portuguese cuisine with a stunning terrace overlooking the ocean.

This was the view when we stopped in earlier this week to make our reservation.

Shawn enjoying his whisky sour with a Port wine float

The sauce on these prawns was so good we used all our remaining bread to soak it up afterwards.

Shawn’s starter was a scallop dish with an avocado lime sauce that was also excellent.

The star of the show was the BBQ grilled sea bass with sweet potato puree. We may have never had a better piece of grilled fish.

Our dinner was so outstanding, we immediately made another reservation for next week (and might make one for the week after!)

With salty air, sandy toes, and relaxation levels at maximum capacity,

Saúde!