We spent the next two days having fun in the sun at our Sagres hotel, the Memmo Baleeira. The words, "A Perfect Day" were written on the hotel window and what they said was so true! Glorious weather, amazing fresh seafood and great fun!
Believe it or not, we actually did manage to pull ourselves away from paradise and venture into Sagres.
The town of Sagres sits high on a bluff overlooking the shoreline and ocean. On one side there is a fishing port,
Our walk into the town of Sagres took about 3 minutes.
Sagres has only one main street.
On it you will find a lovely park, a bus stop and the usual collection of businesses for tourism...restaurants and multiple stores selling gifts and souvenirs made of cork! Everything imaginable was made of cork...cork postcards, cork and tile trinkets, cork belts, cork hats, beautifully made cork handbags, amazing cork shoes and even cork umbrellas!
There also is a sundial in the town square.
Throw in some surf shops and main street Sagres is complete. Indeed, surfing is one of the main draws to this sleepy seaside town.
As we walked along we saw that many of the small Sagres homes had lovely flowers in their cozy front yards from "birds of paradise"
to fragrant rose bushes.
Some other homes had, instead of flowers, multiple clear plastic gallon jugs of water lining their front wall. It was an ingenious way to utilize the 90+ degree heat of the day to create hot water for the home.
We hiked for 20 minutes from "downtown" Sagres along the side of the main road to Cape Sagres Fort and the Navigators' school.
Along the way we passed a shop selling, you guessed it, every type of Portuguese pottery plates imaginable! In addition, there were Portuguese pottery plaques, cups, saucers, you name it, anything from massive tiles to thimbles can be found inside!
The long driveway off the main road had a parking lot just outside the fort. It was lined with air conditioned tour buses. Cape Sagres had touristy items for sale in its parking lot; but THE most amazing parking lot was in front of Cape St. Vincente. There, beside the tour bus' parking places were rows and rows of merchants hawking their "authentic" blankets (!), baseball hats and the ubiquitous t-shirts.
This Cape St. Vincente touristy parking lot area even came complete with a "salt of the earth" vendor whose catchy slogan in German "Letter Bratwurst or Amerika" translates to: "Last Hot Dog Until America"!
At the Cape Sagres Fort and Navigator School parking lot, we were happy to successfully run the souvenir gauntlet and enter Cape Sagres Fort.
This entire fort area was severely damaged during the Great Earthquake of 1755. Today, only one turret of the original fort remains. Scientists believe the epicenter of the Great Earthquake was just 50 miles off the point. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated this area, as it devastated Lisbon, and literally annihilated Sagres, along with our previously visited sleepy seagoing villages of Salema, Luz and Lagos.
This reconstructed fort was built in the 18th century on the school's original settlements.
In 1420, Prince Henry essentially built a town protected by the fort. The "school" of Prince Henry the Navigator is a loosely held term for there was not any one building designated as a school. Instead the term "school" meant a group of followers. Prince Henry engaged expert cardiologists and instrument makers to help his captains have the best nautical information available...an improved Astrolabe (a compact instrument that uses the stars for navigation), improved sundial, maps that were constantly being updated, and creating a revolutionary type of vessel known as the caravel which was designed here.
Of special note about this innovative man, Prince Henry ensured that his Navigation school taught the sailors "mapmaking, shipbuilding, sailing, astronomy, and mathematics (for navigating), plus botany, zoology, anthropology, languages and salesmanship for mingling with the locals." Henry stayed at home here "updated maps, briefed returning sailors, ordered supplies, and signed paychecks."
Henry the Navigator, who was born in 1394 is thought to have died in Sagres in 1460.
There is a stone column in the fort that honors Prince Henry the Navigator and was erected on the 500th anniversary of his death. As a portion of this stone column is a replica of the plaque that Portuguese explorers "planted" in their newly "discovered" lands claiming it for Portugal.
In the 20th century, the restoration of the exterior of the fort was completely whitewashed. It was quite a ways up to the top where the Portuguese flag proudly flies.
The two photos below are a mystery to historians. It is a circle on the ground, 100 feet across and outlined by round pebbles. This could be a compass rose or a "rosa-dos-ventos", a VERY large wind compass. Still others speculate it was a sun dial. By placing a "pole in the center pointing toward the north star (at a 37-degree angle, which is Sagres' latitude) would cast a shadow on the dial showing the time of day." Whatever it was, it is Fort Sagres' most impressive site. What is known is that the original was destroyed by the 1755 earthquake. Astoundingly, this circle was discovered under the earth, was excavated in 1919, and was restored recently.
The compass rose.
.
This lovely little whitewashed Church of Our Lady of Grace was rebuilt in the 16th century on its original pre-earthquake site. It has a sparse, yet beautiful, interior with St Vincent and St Frances flanking its humble altar.
On the outskirts of the Cape Sages Fort we saw a man fishing just off the fort's walls. We saw him catch a fish then pull it all the way in and cup it with his hands. As he stroked the fish he thanked the fish for being his dinner.
On our way back to Sagres and towards our hotel we stopped off at the fishing docks to see the commercial fishermans' haul for the day.
Mountains of octopi off to the markets!
For the remainder of the day and all thru the next day, we kept on having more fun in the sun as we swam in the ocean, ate incredible Portuguese fish dishes and lounged around enjoying our last days in Sagres.
It doesn't get much better than this!
