Nazaré

The earliest settlements were at Pederneira and the Sítio, on high ground above the beach, which gave refuge from raids by Vikings and later by French, English and Dutch pirates that continued into the early 19th century. According to the Legend of Nazaré, a small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary brought from Nazareth was carried here in 711 by a monk, Romano, with Roderic, the last Visigothic king, and left in a grotto on the cliff. In 1182, tradition says, the Virgin saved the knight Dom Fuas Roupinho when his horse stopped at the edge of the cliff in thick fog, and he built a chapel over the grotto in thanks; a mark said to be a hoofprint is still shown in the rock.

King Fernando I founded a larger church on the Sítio in 1377, transformed over the following centuries into the sanctuary of today, and the shrine became a landmark for sailors. Pederneira, a port with shipbuilding, received a charter in 1514, and in 1577 King Sebastian ordered a fort on the headland to protect the fishing, shipbuilding and timber trade from raiders. During the French invasion, the fort's garrison was persuaded to surrender by local students; the French later returned and burned houses and boats in reprisal.

Only in the 19th century, with the end of piracy, did people settle the beach itself, which became the town centre. The municipality took the name Nazaré in 1912. Over the 20th century the fishing village grew into a seaside resort, and from 2011, when Garrett McNamara surfed a record-breaking wave at Praia do Norte, it became a world centre of big-wave surfing.

The town is best known for its fishing traditions. Women traditionally wore a headscarf and flannel skirts embroidered in seven colours — the famous seven skirts, worn in layers to cover the head, shoulders and legs against the sea air — and men a flannel shirt and black stocking cap. In the 1950s and 1960s the costume and daily life of the town drew painters and photographers, among them Stanley Kubrick and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The costumes are still worn occasionally, and the Fisherman House-Museum keeps the memory of that life.

Faith is the other pillar. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Nazaré draws pilgrims all year, many of them visiting on the way to or from Fátima, and the festival of Our Lady of Nazaré around 8 September, the municipal holiday, combines processions with bullfights at the town's bullring, fireworks, folk dancing and a fair.

The waves have added a new identity. Records were set at Praia do Norte by Garrett McNamara in 2011, Rodrigo Koxa in 2017 and Sebastian Steudtner in 2020, whose wave of 26.2 metres remains the tallest ever surfed, while Maya Gabeira set the women's record here in 2020. The HBO series 100 Foot Wave was filmed largely in Nazaré, and visitors to the fort's viewpoint more than doubled between 2015 and 2017.

The municipality had about 15,000 people at the 2021 census, around 10,000 of them in the town itself, which brings together the three old settlements of Praia, Sítio and Pederneira and newer districts built since the second half of the 20th century. The municipality is surrounded on its landward side by Alcobaça.

Tourism dominates the economy, with a summer beach season and, increasingly, a winter season built around the big waves and the surfing championships. Fishing traditions remain part of the town's identity, and many residents let rooms to visitors. Pilgrims add a steady flow to the Sítio all year.

Summer brings crowds to the beach and long evenings in the restaurants of the Praia; winter is quieter, punctuated by swell days when the headland fills with spectators. The sea is a constant presence and danger: in 2012 a rogue wave killed a child and her grandfather walking on a beach nearby, and in 2023 a Brazilian professional surfer died while tow-in surfing. In late January 2026 Storm Kristin struck the district, causing about €15 million of damage to the municipality's infrastructure and revealing large amounts of debris and rubbish on the coast.

Fish is the heart of the table in Nazaré. The town's small restaurants grill sardines and other fish, often outside the door, and the fishing traditions of the Praia mean seafood dominates menus along the seafront and around the Sítio square. The fort on the headland was built in 1577 partly to protect the town's fishing, and the Fisherman House-Museum records the lives of the families who depended on the catch.

In the wider Oeste region the sour-cherry liqueur ginja, made by infusing sour cherries in aguardente with sugar and spices, is a typical drink, and nearby Alcobaça is one of the towns known for it.

Eating out ranges from simple grill houses in the back streets of the Praia to restaurants with views over the bay from the clifftop. Summer is the busiest season, when the beach crowds fill the restaurants; in winter the swell-watchers and the townspeople keep them going.