Amorosa Beach
Located approximately 13 km south of Viana do Castelo is the small resort of Amorosa, which is popular with families from the north of Portugal. The pretty, sandy and rocky Amorosa Beach also has sea conditions which attract surfers and body boarders. This is an EEC blue flag beach, with life guards on duty in season and facilities for the disabled. To protect the surrounding dunes, access is over timber walkways. The average seawater temperature in summer is 15-16 ºC, parking is available, umbrellas can be hired, and there are café, bar and restaurant facilities. The Amorosa Beach has been gaining over the past years a crescent demand.
Its perfect combination between the extensive sandy area and the close by refreshing pine tree wood, allows unique moments on summer days.
Easy Parking: Has a parking lot
Support services available: Beach under Survaillance, Windsurf, Bodyboard, Surf, Bar, Sanitary Instalations, Showers, Access for the disabled, Restaurant, Competitive Fishing, First Aid Center
Blue flag: Yes
Portugal gastronomy
Portugal’s cuisine is as rich and varied as its landscape.
The most distinctive feature of Portuguese cuisine comes from the sea. As you enjoy a simple grilled fish, always fresh like the seafood that abounds from end to end along the coast, you can be sure that you are in Portugal! Cataplanas, bouillabaisses and any other fish or seafood dish are also excellent choices.
For meat dishes, our main suggestion is cozido à portuguesa, a mix of meats, vegetables and various sausages, cooked in a delicious way. We have excellent DOP (Protected Denomination of Origin) meats, from north to south, whether it’s beef, pork or kid. Many vegetables and fruit also preserve the taste of the old times, and some also have the DOP label, especially as many are produced organically.
Portuguese olive oil is of prime quality and is part of every dish, including cod (for which it is said that there are 1001 recipes!), which we excel at preparing and enjoying.
Each dish is matched to the right wine. The whole country produces wine and, while Port wine is famous, the Douro, Alentejo and many other table wines are no less superior.
And the cheeses! While Queijo da Serra (mountain cheese from Serra da Estrela) tops the bill, all the cheeses from Centro de Portugal, Alentejo and the Azores are delicious.
The sweets, whose roots go back to the many convents where they were originally prepared, even today make us “give thanks to heaven”. And a pastel de nata (custard tart) is a must. It is delicious with coffee, which we drink in the form of espresso.
At the end of a meal, we might make a toast with some Port or Madeira, fortified wines that have been spreading our name to faraway lands for centuries. Or with an excellent sparkling wine produced in Portugal, to celebrate a memorable meal provided by the country’s talented chefs.
Portuguese Wine
Porto
For centuries the Portuguese were a great seafaring nation. Consequently, Portuguese wines were exported widely. Purely to enable the wines to survive the long, hot sea voyages, red wines were fortified by the addition of spirits. This was the beginning of one of the world's great wines and wine-making techniques.
The grapes for Porto are grown on the steep, baking slopes of the upper Douro Valley close to the Spanish border. Traditionally, the grapes were harvested and transported down the Douro river to the city of Oporto on sailing boats knows as Barcos. Oporto is still the centre for the maturing of Port wines, as well as the commercial trading and export centre. All of the great Port houses have headquarters in Oporto, many of them English in origin. This stems from an 18th Century trading agrrement known as the Methuen Treaty.