Nazaré Lighthouse

Interesting facts

When first lit in 1903 the lighthouse burned paraffin and showed a fixed red light; it switched to white in 1926 and was electrified in 1953.

In thick fog a siren on the fort sounds a ten-second blast every 35 seconds, successor to a compressed-air signal installed in 1952.

The light, fully automated since 1986, can be seen about 14 nautical miles out to sea.

In 1808 locals drove out a French garrison of 50, helped by six students in Coimbra Academic Battalion uniform who bluffed that reinforcements had come.

In 1834 victorious Liberals hurled the stone image of Saint Michael from the walls onto the sand below, where it lay mutilated.

The fort was first raised to guard local shipyards that shipped timber from the royal pine forest of Leiria.

Its plan looks truncated, with only half the bastions usual for a fortress of its period, fitted tightly to the irregular cliff.

By 1900 the disused fort was in private hands; the state expropriated it in 1902, the year before the lighthouse was installed.

The upper Nazaré Canyon begins only about a kilometre offshore, so deep water reaches almost to the foot of the headland.

Displays inside include a 'Surfer Wall' of boards donated by big-wave riders and the story of the German submarine U-963, sunk off Nazaré in 1945.

Why it is worth it

Nazaré Lighthouse is a small red lantern on the walls of an old fort, and it would be unremarkable if it did not stand where it does. The Fort of São Miguel Arcanjo sits on a rocky promontory about fifty metres above the Atlantic, dividing two very different beaches: to the south the sheltered town beach of Nazaré, to the north Praia do Norte, where the ocean produces some of the largest surfable waves ever recorded. From the headland around the lighthouse, the big-wave surfers of Praia do Norte are watched from almost directly above.

The reason lies offshore. The Nazaré Canyon, one of the largest submarine canyons in Europe, runs roughly 230 kilometres out into the Atlantic and plunges to depths of more than 5,000 metres. It funnels and focuses incoming swell so that waves arriving at Praia do Norte are amplified far beyond those on neighbouring beaches. Praia do Norte has been the setting for a series of world records for the largest wave surfed: Garrett McNamara in 2011, Rodrigo Koxa in 2017, Maya Gabeira in 2018 and 2020, and Sebastian Steudtner, whose wave of about 26 metres in October 2020 set the mark.

The fort itself is much older than the surf. It was first built in 1577 on the orders of King Sebastian, enlarged in the 1640s under John IV, when it took its present name and shape, and saw action during the French invasion of 1807–1808 and again in the Liberal Wars of the 1830s. The lighthouse was added on its walls and first lit on 1 December 1903; its lantern tower is only about eight metres tall and shows a white light. Since 2014 the fort has housed an exhibition on the canyon and the giant waves it generates, so a visit joins the history of the headland with the physics of the swell below it.

Getting there

The fort stands on the headland of Nazaré, about 11 km from Alcobaça; the nearest international airport is Lisbon Humberto Delgado (LIS), about 92 km away by straight line. From the town, the headland is reached on foot or by road.

Nazaré Lighthouse

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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