Ericeira

Europe's first World Surfing Reserve: eight serious breaks in four kilometres, a whitewashed fishing town, and cold clean Atlantic.

Ericeira was a fishing village that became, in 2011, the first World Surfing Reserve in Europe — an actual legal designation, not marketing. What it protects is a four-kilometre stretch of coast north of town holding eight named breaks over reef and rock: Pedra Branca, Reef, Crazy Left, Coxos, Cave, São Lourenço, Ribeira d’Ilhas, Empa. Coxos is widely called the best right-hander in Europe and is for very good surfers only. Ribeira d’Ilhas is the contest wave, long and forgiving by comparison, with a café on the cliff above it.

The town itself sits on a low cliff about forty-five kilometres north-west of Lisbon, whitewashed with blue trim, and it still lands fish at Praia dos Pescadores below the Largo das Ribas terrace. Praça da República and Rua Dr. Eduardo Burnay are the centre; the streets around them have gone from grocers to surf shops and speciality coffee over fifteen years, and the transformation is roughly two-thirds complete. Prices reflect it: a plate of grilled sea bass is €18 to €24, a flat white is €2.80, a surf lesson €35 to €45.

Nine in the evening in September is the town at its best — the terraces above Praia do Sul busy, people in wetsuits still walking up from the water, restaurants full and turning tables until eleven. In August it is heaving and parking is a blood sport. In January it is grey, half-shut, and the swell is enormous, which is exactly what a certain kind of visitor wants. The genuinely good surf season here runs roughly September to May, not summer.

Come if you surf, want to learn, or simply like a coast town that is about the sea rather than about sunbathing. Beginners should book onto a school and use Foz do Lizandro, the beach-break river mouth south of town, rather than trying the reefs. Skip Ericeira if you want warm calm water — this is 15 to 18°C Atlantic with rips — or if you need nightlife beyond a dozen bars that close around two. Skip it in August unless you have booked parking with your room.

Where to sleep

The old town between Praça da República, Rua Dr. Eduardo Burnay and Largo das Ribas is where you want to be: everything walkable, sea at the end of every street, guesthouses and small hotels at €70 to €120 in shoulder season, €140 to €220 in August. The surf camps and hostels cluster north along the road towards Ribeira d’Ilhas and south around Foz do Lizandro; both mean a drive or a bus into town for dinner, but a shorter one to the water. Book parking with the room if you have a car — the old town streets are narrow, one-way and full by ten in the morning in summer. Avoid the apartment blocks up at Ericeira's northern edge past the sports complex, which look central on a map and are a fifteen-minute walk uphill from anywhere good. Winter rates drop to €45 to €70 and half the restaurants close.

The essentials

Town to Coxos on the cliff path (6 km)

Start at Largo das Ribas above the fishing beach, walk north past the Ericeira harbour wall and out onto the clifftop track. You pass Empa, then the wide amphitheatre of Ribeira d’Ilhas with its café, then the sharp reef at Cave, and finally look down on Coxos, the right-hander that made this coast famous. Return the same way or catch the bus back on the N247.

Getting there & around

Mafrense coaches run from Lisbon's Campo Grande terminal to Ericeira in seventy to ninety minutes for about €6, roughly hourly, more often at weekends, dropping at the terminal on Rua Prudêncio Franco da Trindade five minutes from Praça da República. From the airport, take the yellow metro line to Campo Grande and change to the bus — about two hours in total. By car it is the A8 and N116 via Mafra, fifty minutes without traffic. Inside town everything is walkable; the northern breaks need the coastal bus, a bike or a car, and Foz do Lizandro is a twenty-five minute walk south along the cliff.