Monday.. our last week 😧 We had the included breakfast here at the hotel we’re staying at, Quinta dos Machados Countryside Hotel & Spa. Our lack of pictures is telling! The food is fresh and tasty but the variety isn’t there, and most critically, the juice isn’t fresh squeezed! Laugh at my privilege all you want, the days of not-fresh-squeezed orange juice are over! Actually the least fresh OJ I have had for many years is Trader Joe’s fresh squeezed, which is somewhere in the middle since it’s obviously bottled but doesn’t have the acidity a regular bottle or carton of OJ has (and it’s reasonably priced and available!). We ARE buying a juicer Savitri has had her eye on for years as soon as we get home for oranges as well as.. pomegranates? grapes? apples? The juicer will cost less than most people spend on alcoholic beverages in a week! Ok on with our day..

We drove to Peniche, a peninsula town on the west coast pointing toward.. Canada? Our plan was simple, find an Avis office to fix our rental car contract (I’d explain if I really understood myself!), and along the way visit cool stuff and eat yummy stuff. That second part describes most days to be fair.

The last couple miles to Peniche transitions quickly from rolling hills of olive trees to coastal scrub, cliff/water views, and lots more houses and people. We soon ended up over one of the bridges into Peniche, at which point the roads are flanked with the same light and dark cobblestone sidewalks and old buildings as elsewhere in Portugal. Our first stop was Fortaleza de Peniche (Peniche Fortress or Fort). We were on a walk & view kick so we stayed outside and read about it. We also walked out all over the point next to it.

We continued along the peninsula to a location I happened to notice in OpenStreetMap, Gruta da Furninha (aka Dominique’s Cave). This is an ancient natural cave in the cliff wall. While there’s an info board at the top, I actually wasn’t sure we could get to it and walked very close to the cliff’s edge to take a picture and happened to see the first step.

Flash didn’t help much except to make faces pop (see Savitri). The flash-as-a-flashlight was useless as well. The only way I could see into the dark recesses was to hold the phone (iPhone 15 Pro Max) steady and let it collect some light.

It was stinky in there and clearly had hosted many people, not sure if those were related. I didn’t see any garbage thankfully. It’s an odd but very intriguing location.

Next stop was the westernmost tip of the peninsula, Cabo Carvoeiro. This is the best view of the Berlenga Islands (which we’re debating visiting but it’s an all-day trip and we don’t have many days left!) and of a large coastal spire.

We were getting hungry by this point so we drove around the north side of the peninsula and back into downtown Peniche and walked to a local Portuguese restaurant call D’Raiz.

The menu is mostly seafood, and as is the custom at the good places, they walked out a platter of the day’s catches for us to pick from. We didn’t take a picture of the platter but we DID take pictures of all the yummy stuff we picked from it!

We were good and passed on dessert… so that we could get gelato down the street. I have been suffering withdrawal symptoms lately and needed a fix.

I have to say that while the gelato was good, it won’t make my “best of” lists. We’ve had the best in the world by most accounts. That said, this place is actually known for their creative recreations of meals and scenes made out of gelato, which we didn’t have. I would check that out if in the area again!

We partially dealt with the Avis issue on the way back to Gradil, but more importantly drove through the same rolling hills with an eye for view points.. it’s a beautiful farming area. There are more wild parts that we haven’t driven into or photographed yet.. stay tuned!