Portugal opened the world’s ocean routes five hundred years ago. Now it opens them again — on a board, in the spray, at dawn when the beach is still empty.
Why Portugal is
the world capital of waves
Thousands of kilometres of open ocean, reefs and underwater canyons: a coastline that seems made for surfing.
Off the coast of Portugal the Atlantic works like a machine for making waves. Thousands of kilometres of open water — nothing slows the swell down. It arrives here carrying the energy of storms from the far side of the ocean and breaks on a coastline that seems designed for surfing: endless beaches, reefs, and underwater canyons that turn an ordinary wave into a monster.
Nazaré has become the symbol. It was here in 2020 that António Laureano claimed to have ridden a 101-foot wave — around 30 metres. The height was never officially confirmed, but even without records Nazaré remains home to the biggest waves on the planet. They are made by the Nazaré Canyon — some 5,000 metres deep and 230 kilometres long — which concentrates the energy of ocean swells the way a lens concentrates light.
But Nazaré is the extreme, for the few. Portuguese surfing is not only giant waves. It is Ericeira — Europe’s first World Surfing Reserve, designated by Save The Waves in 2011. It is Peniche, a stop on the WSL Championship Tour. It is Cascais, Costa da Caparica, the Alentejo — hundreds of kilometres of perfect breaks along the entire coast.
Sérgio Monteiro,
young surfer
He stood on a board before he had learned to swim properly. That is what happens when you grow up beside the ocean — water stops being an element and becomes home. Sérgio Monteiro was born and raised in Portugal, and he has something no amount of training can buy: an instinct for the wave. He feels it before it forms.
Watching him from the shore, you understand what it means to read the ocean. Not simply to ride waves, but to converse with them. Every session is a dialogue. And every time Sérgio comes out of the water, he knows something he didn’t know before.
In surfing there is a Portuguese expression that resists translation — “saudade do mar”. Longing for the sea. Not sadness, but a pull: the feeling that when you are away from the water, you already want to go back. For Sérgio this is not a metaphor. It is a schedule.
Portugal on the
world surfing map
Peniche, Ericeira and a generation of Portuguese surfers who made the world take notice.
The Championship Tour stop at Peniche is one of the most prestigious on the WSL calendar. Every year the world’s finest surfers come here — John John Florence, Italo Ferreira, Griffin Colapinto. The waves at Supertubos, Peniche’s main break, are among the most demanding and beautiful in competition: heavy barrels right by the shore, where a surfer has seconds to decide.
Ericeira is a different story. Seven world-class breaks across eight kilometres of coast: Ribeira d’Ilhas, Pedra Branca, Coxos. In 2011 Ericeira became Europe’s first World Surfing Reserve. It means the waves here are so consistent and so special that they are protected like a natural monument.
Portuguese surfers are making an ever stronger mark on the world stage. Tiago Pires, known as Saca, was the first Portuguese surfer to qualify for the elite Championship Tour, and Frederico Morais from Cascais followed in his wake. In 2014 Vasco Ribeiro became the first Portuguese to win the WSL World Junior Championship. Teresa Bonvalot and Yolanda Hopkins competed at the Tokyo Olympics. Generation after generation, Portugal produces world-class surfers — and Sérgio Monteiro is one of those watched with hope.
Nazaré:
where monsters live
A wave the height of a ten-storey building, an underwater canyon five kilometres deep and three seconds of flight.
Nazaré is a different kind of surfing. Not athletic, not competitive — more philosophical. When a wave the height of a ten-storey building bears down on you at the speed of a train, the question “why?” dissolves on its own. Only the present remains — three seconds of flight you will remember for the rest of your life.
The Nazaré Canyon is unique. Around 5,000 metres deep — one of the deepest in Europe — it acts as an amplifier. A swell arriving from the open ocean enters the canyon, accelerates, concentrates and rises to the surface as a wave several times larger than the one that set out at sea.
Garrett McNamara opened Nazaré to big-wave hunting: in 2011 he set the then world record here. After him, everyone followed. Now every winter Nazaré becomes the capital of madness: jet skis tow surfers into waves too fast to paddle into, helicopters film from above, thousands of spectators line the clifftop at Sítio. This is not sport. It is opera.
They may be mad.
But they’re our mad ones.
The story goes that when Garrett McNamara first turned up in Nazaré and told the local fishermen he wanted to ride the waves that smashed against the cliffs, the old men tapped their temples. Those waves had sunk fishing boats. To the locals they were a threat, not sporting equipment.
A few months later McNamara set a world record, and the old men came to watch. They stood on the clifftop in silence. Then one of them said: “Pode ser que sejam loucos. Mas são os nossos loucos.” They may be mad. But they’re our mad ones.
A wave doesn’t ask who you are. It has no time for biographies. There is only this moment — and what you do with it.Secrets Service · Portugal
Sebastian Steudtner, 2020 — a Guinness World Record. That same year António Laureano claimed a 30-metre wave, but its height was never officially confirmed.
One of the deepest underwater canyons in Europe. It amplifies waves the way a lens amplifies light.
Europe’s first. Save The Waves recognised Ericeira for the quality and variety of its waves — 7 world-class breaks along 8 km of coast.
Pedro Martins de Lima stood up on a 16-kilogram wooden board at Carcavelos.
Saudade do mar —
longing for the sea
Portuguese has a word — “saudade” — perhaps the most untranslatable word on earth. It is neither sadness nor nostalgia. It is a longing for something beautiful that was, that is, or that may never happen — and you long for it all the same. Sailors said it as they put to sea. Surfers say it as they come out of the water.
Sérgio comes out of the water, looks at the next wave — and already wants to go back in. This is not sport. This is saudade do mar. A longing for the sea that is always right there.
Where to go and when
Ericeira is the best place to surf at any level, from beginner to advanced. About forty minutes from Lisbon. The waves work year-round. Cascais and Costa da Caparica are closer to the city and good for learning. Peniche is for experienced surfers and is at its best in autumn and winter, when the big Atlantic swells roll in.
Nazaré is for spectators only — or for very experienced surfers with jet-ski support. The big-wave season runs from November to March. The clifftop viewpoint at Sítio is free and open to all. It is one of the most breathtaking natural spectacles in Europe — and you watch it standing on solid ground.
