Driving Across Portugal’s Dramatic Southern Coastline – Hand Luggage Only

The next morning, not so bright and early, we hopped into our car (after another decadent breakfast at the Four Seasons), said farewell to Lisbon and headed off in search of more of more of what Portugal had to offer.

Our base for the next few days was one I’d honestly never really thought about visiting or even really heard of till we found this amazing hotel in the national park.

Let’s face it – most people tend to visit Portugal either for its amazing beaches/coastline or for its beautiful towns and cities – not so much so its national parks so while this wasn’t the most obvious choice, I was very intrigued and rather excited to explore a totally different part of Portugal.

Our home for the next few days was the Enigma – Nature & Water Hotel in Odemira.

Despite the hotel being in a national park, Odemira is one of those places in the South of Portugal that isn’t too far from the coast so you really get the best of both worlds here (as we got to find out over the next few days.

But first, let me show you around what would be our home for the next 5 days…

Due to a mix-up, the actual rooms we had reserved were unavailable for the first couple of nights – which would have been a bummer but was certainly no issue whatsoever when we got shown into a 2-bedroom apartment that would be replacing our initial reservations. 😀

(*The rooms we booked were amazing but getting a fairly spacious apartment most certainly felt like an upgrade!)

We decided to just kick back for the rest of the afternoon by the pool and make the most of the sunshine before the sun finally set at which point we drove into Odemira’s quaint little centre for dinner and drinks. The entire day was nice and lazy, just the way any good holiday should be. 😀

The following morning, we decided to head off in search of the coast and its beaches – which we found in no time whatsoever.

The scenery around here is absolutely gorgeous and you start to get a taste of that famously jagged and dramatic Portuguese coastline within minutes from the hotel.

By the way, nudity on the beaches here is also not unusual – something I found out later on when looking through photos on a bigger screen and realising that empty golden sandy beach in a desolate cover served as perfect camouflage for a golden-tanned naked sunbather. 😆😆

After wandering around the beach for a…