The kids wanted to swim first thing this morning so once again we didn’t get on the road until at least 11:00. We really didn’t get to see much of Coimbra, despite being here 2 nights, but many things are closed. We believe the students are all away for the Easter holiday. Our guidebooks all indicated that Coimbra is a fun, vibrant college town with lots of people and great shops and restaurants; we found it to be somewhat deserted with the majority of shops and buildings closed. With a bit of reluctance we headed out of town towards our next destination. We went to Batalha to see the big church and monastery which were really neat. 
Some great pictures of Abby being put in the “corner” because she was not behaving. Despite the small disappointment in Coimbra, this definitely seems to be the time to travel. We had the monastery and practically the whole town, to ourselves. After Batalha we headed to Nazare which is a small fishing village on the coast. We stopped for lunch along the way and had a great meal. The kids were able to see the difference between squid and octopus because Annie’s meal came with both. The octopus was absolutely delicious and even CJ liked it, he just didn’t like the “crunchy legs that seem a little burnt.” 
Some great pictures of Abby being put in the “corner” because she was not behaving. Despite the small disappointment in Coimbra, this definitely seems to be the time to travel. We had the monastery and practically the whole town, to ourselves. After Batalha we headed to Nazare which is a small fishing village on the coast. We stopped for lunch along the way and had a great meal. The kids were able to see the difference between squid and octopus because Annie’s meal came with both. The octopus was absolutely delicious and even CJ liked it, he just didn’t like the “crunchy legs that seem a little burnt.” 
We found a prime parking spot right on the beach in Nazare and let the kids run around in the surf and sand for a bit. We found a couple of local kids and played soccer with them on the beach for a few minutes. We then took the funicular up to the upper town of Sitio and found a little pub with a very engaging proprietor. We stayed for about an hour while he and his sole other customer proceeded to let us know that women’s liberation is one of the worst “exports” of America, along with our greedy capitalism. Offensive possibly, entertaining…absolutely. He wanted to know why we Americans expect Europeans to speak English. He seemed mildly offended when I suggested it was because “we Americans” arranged about 60 years ago to intercede and make sure all of Europe wouldn’t be forced to speak German for the rest of their lives! Oh yeah, did I mention the part about him being Deutsch?!
After that engaging bit of entertainment we headed out but ran into a thunderstorm. The kids were barefoot anyway so we let them traipse around in the rain for a bit. We finally headed for the car and headed to Peniche. Peniche is another little town further down the coast. We drove out to the very edge of the cape and watched the sun set. It was really cool, Abby now thinks that the sun “melts” into the ocean each night. The cliffs are really gorgeous, but treacherous also, we made sure to watch the sunset from the safety of our car. Another great time was had by all.
