We left our house in Cascais around 9am on 07/02/2020 and we drove to the Figueirinha Beach, in Setúbal, because a dear friend recommended it as being one of the best in the region. Our journey took almost 2 hours instead of the 1 hour and 10 minutes indicated by the GPS if we had gone directly, because I got confused and put “Sesimbra” as the destination and also because the route between Portinho da Arrábida and Figueirinha beaches was closed.

We only discovered this last detail when we arrived at the police barrier and the guards told us that we would need to park the car there and take a bus to our beach, or we could go around the Arrábida Mountains to get to the beach from the other side, passing through Outão.

That's what we did, of course, after all, no one wants to get on a bus unnecessarily in the middle of a pandemic, right? To our surprise, the N379-1 road has spectacular views of the mountains, which get even better when we can see the Troia Peninsula with its turquoise blue water.

On the road

There are some viewpoints along the road if you want to stop and take pictures, but we wanted to get to the beach early, so I took the pictures while the car was still moving. Just look how beautiful it is:

Our enchantment wore off when we descended the mountain and came across a cement factory – that's right! – huge and hideous near Outão beach, Secil. We couldn't believe what we were seeing, but it's real, folks... It's been there since 1904 and produces around 2 million tons of cement per year.

We continued driving to our destination and soon saw a parking lot in front of the beach, with only 3 empty spaces, and luckily we got one of them. When we saw the cars that arrived after us and couldn't park, we were just thankful for our luck. Our anniversary gift! <3

The beach

The view of the beach from the parking lot is already surreal, but when you step onto the sand, it gets even better. What a spectacular beach! Crystal clear water, no waves, relatively empty, with mountains on the right and the Troia peninsula on the left… What else is there to do? Thanks for the tip, Alê!

We were going to set up our tent in front of the fixed beach umbrellas, but a girl told us that it was forbidden and that we could only stay there without an umbrella, but that we could walk a little and set up our tent further away. Since it was less crowded there, we stayed just on the beach umbrella and it was lovely.

There were some clouds and we even thought it would rain or get cold, but then the sun came out and we managed to gather the courage to face the stupidly cold water. Oh my God, why is it so cold, right? We stayed there enjoying the beach for about 3 hours and only saw street vendors of the famous “Berlin balls“, which are nothing more than Brazilian “dreams”. I don’t think sweets go well with the beach, but go figure… It’s a good thing we brought sandwiches, chips and water so we didn’t have to leave the place for anything.

We left around 2:30 a.m. to have time to pick up the little one from daycare, we paid less than 3 euros for parking, and we didn't get stuck in any traffic until Cascais. On the way back, we passed by Christ the King before we took the bridge to Lisbon and I just said thank you…

I'm thinking about going back to see the other beaches in the region, Arrábida Port and the Creiro Beach, the beaches of Sesimbra (mainly the Horse Stream) and also to get to know the famous Troy Peninsula. I've already researched that there are boats that leave from Setúbal and Sesimbra to these beaches and I think it must be a beautiful trip. Of course I'll tell you all about it here when we do it! 😉