April 17, 2024

Portimao is a port we have never visited on our trips to Portugal. We selected the Benagil Cathedral Sea Cave tour and just walked to the tour boat from our ship.

Ana was our guide and she took us to the boat.

Once on the boat, we put on our life jackets and prepared for the trip along the shoreline.

The Benagil Sea Cave, often called the Benagil Cathedral is located on the southern coast of Portugal, near the town of Benagil. This stunning sea cave is famous for its large dome-shaped opening, which allows sunlight to filter through, creating a beautiful natural light display inside. Actually there are many beautiful rock formations and many caves along this shoreline. Here are just some of them.

Our guide on the ship pointed out some of the highlights including the spectacular hotels, the people who hike along the ridges and the many kayakers.

It was a really nice tour with very good weather and calm water. We were able to enter many of the caves in the boat.

Once on shore, Ana took us on a walk to the restaurant where we had a typical tapas of bread with tomatoes and local sardines along with a white wine from the region.

There was lots of sardine fishing and canning here at one time. These hanging baskets were used to move the fish from the dock to the cannery. These days larger factories are used but the smokestacks from the old factories can never be removed. There is a museum about this industry here.

And it’s a good thing the smokestacks remain because the white storks build their nests on them!

These nests can weigh 200 pounds and are made of sticks. The storks mate for life and return to the same nests every year.

We enjoyed our snack at the restaurant.

It was a really nice day. We did well in trivia and were invited to Tuscan Steak with Marck, our general manager, and Kate, our social hostess who is also one of the singers. It was a fun dinner with a wide range of dinner topics. Later James, Shelley and I did name that tune in Martinis and came in first place!