Cliff Hike — RachiePie

Yesterday morning we woke early so we could be the first to arrive at Benagil Sea Cave, a 45-minute drive from our Airbnb in Luz. This sea cave has a naturally occurring oculus overhead of its own secluded beach. We read the beach gets busy later in the day when lots of boats and people try to visit; however, if you arrive early you can have the place practically to yourself. It does require about a 10 minute swim to get into the cave and unfortunately the morning we went had some really high and rough swells. Since we do not have a death wish, we were unable to do the swim. I'm hoping we can try again another time!! Luckily, we will be in this region for about 3 weeks so fingers crossed we can find a day without crazy waves!

All was not lost as we were able to hike along the top of the cliffs. We started above the Benagil Sea Cave and continued east. We hiked for about an hour and a half until we reached Arco Natural before turning around and heading back to our car. It was a beautiful walk along the ocean and another cloudless, sunny day.

Looking into the oculus of the Benagil Sea Cave from above

Once back at our car, we drove to the beach next to Arco Natural, Praia da Marinha, where we found a shady spot underneath a rock and camped there for a few hours.

The tide kept creeping closer as the afternoon went on and after watching several families in front of us have their belongings get wet (including two young girls' cell phones!!), we decided to call it a day as the dry areas of the beach were getting smaller and smaller! We packed up our stuff and drove to Algar Seco, considered one of the best viewpoints in Portugal, to see the sandstone cliffs and ocean. There is a nice boardwalk where you can walk along the edge of the cliffs. We spent some time exploring before heading back to Luz.