Europe,  Portugal,  TDM,  Travel Journal

A day in Setubal (Portugal)

This travel diary will be much shorter than the others eh because it is a succession of monumental #fail 🙂 I put you commented pictures because we did almost nothing all day.


We rented a car (with Europcar – official website) to go to Setubal, 52km from Lisbon. The fiat 500 costs 17€/24h and the Citroen C4 25€/24h

It is in this corner that there is a bird sanctuary, where about thirty dolphins(bottle nose) live, and where the most beautiful beach in Europe is located: Galapinhos Beach.

Well, it was not the best day of our life, because not only we did not see dolphins (while the success rate is 95%). Result: 2 hours of excursion in zodiac to turn in circles in the bay.

Moreover, we did not find the small path to go down to the Galapinhos Beach (we had to park super far away and then come back on foot).

To make matters worse, on the way back to Lisbon, we got into the wrong toll lan e: we couldn’t take a ticket (when passing through the subscriber lane), and without a ticket, at the time of payment, we had to pay 41€ instead of 2€.

Fortunately, the beautiful landscapes make up for the rest. On the way back, we stopped at Costa da Caparica, a very popular seaside resort for the lisbots. Honestly, it makes you want to come back there in summer. I let you discover the pictures.


The visit begins with the Saint-Philippe fortress which dominates the whole city
The chapel of the fortress. Access is free, but there isn’thing else to see either
The view from the fortress
Because of parking problems, we did not find the Galapinhos beach, but the nearby beach, which is also very beautiful
Here are the indications to find the beach of Galapinhos, apparently the most beautiful in Europe. Photo credit : pedroaiste.com
Lunch at the Figueirinha beach. It is so calm and the fine white sand. Happiness!
Thanks to the tourist office, we find a company taking us to see the dolphins in the bay. Unfortunately, despite the 95% success rate, we are among the unlucky 5%. The dolphins are absent today, we just went around the cove length and breadth for 2 hours.
To explain the configuration of the place, a picture is worth a thousand words. Photo credit: captainarrabida.pt
We finish the day at Costa da Caparica, the beach is huge, the waves are quite high, I think it must be great for surfing
It’s time to go home!

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