A Portugal experience – the camper part
“would love to travel in one of those old retro campervans once with our own squad, kind of like I did with my own family when I was young”
The campervan back than was much bigger though and by the time I was eleven I thought it was so not cool anymore, but as with a lot of experiences from your childhood you appreciate some things much better later right?
I come from a pro camping family, oldest of four kids at the time, and for some years almost every school holiday we hit the road with the camper, and saw a lot of Europe. Somehow, we never ended up in Portugal. So, when I started planning our summer trip this year and we decided on Portugal, this was my chance to cross off that little bucket list thing. - Marissa
We decided on a week in the middle of our trip, after spending a few days in Lisbon and Sintra, so we could see a little bit more of the coast than one place. Our final stay of the trip was located more on the country side in the Alejento region, and the van needed to be returned near Lisbon again. For that reason, and the little time, we decided to just focus on the coast line between Cascais and ‘let’s see if we can reach Ocedeixe’ were we heard good things about. And that coastline is truly something…The views are characterized by dramatic praias separated by impressive rocks and cliffs, and those earthy rusty colors are so beautiful. And we are not even talking about the Algarve here.
We’ve hit Cascais, some places in and around Parque Natural da Serra da Arrabida, Comporta and made it down the coastline until around Melides. Although it is considered a way of slow traveling, it took us some days to experience it this way, re building and organizing the very small van for the night or driving again required some practice and patience, especially when travelling with two little kids. After a few days, we decided we wanted to stay at the same camping site for a few nights, make base, shower, do laundry. Soak up those last beach days without traveling and finding a place to spend the night. So, was it idyllic? Yes, it was. In the end, we will only remember singing along the Beatle songs while driving, the sunsets, the beautiful views, and sitting in front of the camper whispering, drinking wine in the dark, while the kids are a sleep. And lesson for next time? We will make sure to make more time to experience Portugal this way, there are so many more places to see. And we can skip those practice days I think ;)
We rented our vintage “Alba“ VW Westfalia van through here