Mira

In February of 1095, D. Raimundo gave Mira and all its effects to Zalêma Godinho.  And, according to the generosity of that period, the latter gave half of her estate to the Royal Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, who took great care in improving these lands, turning them into fertile agricultural lands. But Mira has always been sea and a lake. In the 19^th century the seafront was occupied and the haylofts (palheiros), cleverly mounted on pine platforms, began to change the landscape. In the spring tides, the sands and the sea flowed through the platforms. Then, the fishermen, who have always known how to guess the weather, waited for better conditions to go fishing. Today, the fishermen still insist on dominating the sea from the high bow of their multicoloured boats.  Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, in the little wooden church right next to the beach, has been the devotion saint of many “campaigns”. The art of dragnet fishing is marked on the face of those who know the beach well. They know when the wind will bring a good harvest.You can then walk or cycle and discover the water mills, either in the “Barrinha”, on the beach, or further down, in the Lagoa.  Or the Pine forests that have, for half a century, prevented the sand from spreading from the dunes to the agricultural lands in the interior.And at night, after a magnificent day at the beach, a fish baked on a tile and jacket potatoes baked in the sand, or a succulent “caldeirada” (stew) brings us back the taste of great food amongst a circle of good friends.