Winter 2026 – Portugal – Part 2

We left Spain and thought we were heading south to warmer weather and sunshine. Little did we know what lay ahead!

The last day that we were in Spain it rained the entire day and we only managed to get outside to top up our groceries before we left and a short walk for George. The rain was relentless and the wind was still strong, so much so that the place we stayed at had water running down the inside walls.

Our drive south took us over the border at Tui/Valenca over the river Minho and we headed inland to drive along part of the N2 – one of Portugal’s most scenic roads -this section wound through part of the Douro wine region. It was a great drive winding down into the valley surrounded by terrace after terrace of vines – all bare at this time of year but looking so well-tended, neat black stems poking out of the lush fertile soil set amongst a beautiful mountain back drop.

But with deteriorating weather, we crossed over onto the motorway for quicker progress and as our drive took us higher the rain turned to a snow blizzard.

We decided to stop by a small Aire in a sheltered village called Farminho – off the beaten track and isolated. This turned out to be a wise decision as that night we were right in the middle of Storm Kristen that hit Mid to north Portugal and parts of Spain. Strangely we had a calm night despite receiving a government warning on our mobiles of the impending fierce winds and the horror of what was going on in the area.

 The following morning, we soon discovered what must have passed above us on our drive towards the coastline. This was to be one of the craziest drives of my life. I have never experienced such devastation –the force of the storm gradually revealed itself to us as the day went on. It started when a road was closed and we had to turn back – from then on we saw hundreds of trees literally snapped or uprooted along the roads, power lines down and lying across the road that we drove over, houses stripped of their roof tiles, glass shop fronts smashed, arctic lorries on their sides, a building merchant selling huge septic tanks with his tanks blown around like balloons and lying across roads and in fields, car show rooms with new cars smashed, bit of corrugated iron blown around like paper and huge road signs bent over double. There were turnings we tried to take that disappeared under the water making them impassable. This went on for hours and it took us a long time to get onto the motorway and away from the damage. Google maps was no help so I was literally following a map suggesting roads to try and we would drive carefully not knowing what would be round the corner. We realised how lucky we had been  – if we had been on the coast I’m not sure what danger we would’ve put ourselves into.

We drove all day until the signs of storm damage reduced, we got south of Lisbon we stopped for the night. We’d stopped here 3 years ago at the same time of the year but there couldn’t be more of a contrast with the weather…… huge waves, high winds and rain as opposed to beautiful blue skies and sunshine in 2022.

We were on the edge of Alentejo Natural Park. A protected nature reserve along the southwest coast of Portugal –  I remembered from our last trip here that it contained one of my most favourite  beaches that we had visited and I had chosen to come back here for that very reason.

So, for the next week I had booked an apartment bang in the middle of Alentejo near a small town called Aljezur and close to some of Portugal’s best beaches. The apartment was in a fantastic location with mountain views, walks from the door, between 2 beaches, spacious and peaceful.

We were now an hour from Rio and Hamish and they spent the weekend with us – exploring two of the beaches, Monte Clerigo and Arrifana with its sand dunes that reminded us of Balmedie in Aberdeen.
We walked around the old city of Aljezur that dates to Islamic presence and was at the time a prominent trading centre with ships from Africa sailing up the large estuary, and we visited the ruins of the castle that was built as protection for the busy trading town.

Other days were spent visiting different and remote beaches in the area but we were often unlucky with the tides and the weather continued to try and defy us. High winds and rain interspersed with the odd sunny spell.
The nights were often the worst and we had a frequent power cuts albeit short-term and with so much rain the apartment often felt damp.

Of course, we heard that back in the UK they were also having non -stop rain and Wareham and the surrounding area was flooded. Id like to say that we had one sunny day where we could sit outside with a glass of wine on one of the 3 balconies of our apartment but I managed one coffee on one of the mornings.

Our next stop was Taifa, the southernmost tip of Spain but we had one night with Rio and Hamish at Gale along the way.
Looking ahead there didn’t appear to be any change in the weather as we had Storm Leonardo and Storm Marta yet to makes its presence.