Past and Present.

São Martinho do Porto is located 100km north of Lisbon, 3km form Highway 8 and 13km South of Nazaré. The village belongs to the municipality of Alcobaça and has 5000 habitants. There’s a primary school and a college.

Since the beginning of the century, the thin sands beach of the shell shaped bay, attracts tourists.
There is a little hotel, an apartments hotel, some residentials and pensions, camping parks and guest houses.
Many people from Lisbon come here for the weekend.
The restaurants have many fish specialties and sea fruits specialties.
We have a daily market (except Mondays).
The terraces, cafes and bars are very inviting and relaxing.

Centuries ago the bay reached Alfeizerão. It is said that Julius Ceaser passed here. Our first King Afonso Henriques, gave this land to the Cister Monks in the XII century. They used it as sea port to transport wood form the pine forest of Leiria. This wood was also used to ship building.
All across the bay, there’s Salir do Porto where in those years they extracted salt. There was also a sea port and a shipyard. The ruins of a medieval Customs House can still be visited.

Although the bay has fish and sea fruits, there’s only a few fisherman. Tourists prefer, swimming, surf, sailing, rowing or just enjoy the beach.