Heading to Ericeira for a seafood lunch has always kind of been a favourite activity for my parents and something we tend to do pretty much every year, without even planning or thinking about it. Even when I visited Portugal in Christmas in previous years and the weather outside was cold and uninviting, we always made the yearly pilgrimage and sat at the same waterfront restaurant.

This year, I finally got to return there on a summer day (and what a glorious summer day it was!). With me still uber jet lagged, only a couple of days after getting off the plane (well, planes) from the opposite side of the world, we sat at the usual restaurant and then spent the afternoon wandering around the streets and admiring the surfers out in the water.

There isn’t one particular reason as to why we end up going to this place and not somewhere else but rather a mix of little things that add to Ericeira’s coolness factor. It’s a relatively short drive from Lisbon, it gives us the chance to stop in Sobreiro (Mafra) for some amazing pão com chouriço (which we didn’t this time, since we’d just gotten churros and farturas!) and it is one of those nice little fishing villages that has everything going for it: it’s got that small town character, the amazing sea views and amazing food.

And here’s some bonus trivia, which I’ve just learnt, courtesy of the always trustworthy wikipedia: “In 2011 Ericeira was chosen by the WSR to one of the four World Surfing Reserves together with Malibu and Santa Cruz in California and Manly Beach in Australia”.