6 curated Surfing spots in Portugal, each with its own note and source.
Lisboa · Best time: Year-round · All levels
Roughly 5 km of coast packs everything from sand-bottom beach breaks to powerful reef: Foz do Lizandro is the learners' beach break, Ribeira d'Ilhas a long right-hand point over reef, Coxos a right reef for experienced surfers. Best season runs October to May.
Sources: Save The Waves Coalition — World Surfing Reserve Ericeira, Ericeira Surf Camp
Lissabon · Best time: Year-round · Beginner
A beach break with lefts and rights over sandbars, best on west swell with an offshore northeasterly, and rideable at all stages of the tide. Surf-Forecast flags pollution as a hazard here, and the line-up is often crowded.
Sources: Surf-Forecast
Leiria · Best time: Oct–Mar · Advanced
Off Praia do Norte lies the Nazaré Canyon — per Visit Portugal 200 km long and up to 5,000 m deep, its headwall ending less than a kilometre offshore and stacking swell into giant waves. The beach is unpatrolled and the sea dangerous for swimming; Garrett McNamara rode a 30-metre wave here in November 2011.
Sources: Visit Portugal (Turismo de Portugal)
Leiria · Best time: Year-round · All levels
The headland has beaches facing north, west and southwest, so something is almost always offshore. Supertubos is a steep, barrelling sand-bottom beach break for advanced surfers; the sheltered bay at Baleal Sul is where beginners belong. Waves all year, though the summer Nortada blows hardest at midday.
Sources: The Surf Atlas
Norte · Best time: Year-round · Beginner
The 1.5 km bay runs from the northern breakwater to Castelo do Queijo: two beach breaks in the middle — lefts to the north, rights to the south — plus a fickle right-hander off the cruise terminal. Best on a pushing tide, with the season from October to March. Pollution eases the further you get from the port and refinery.
Sources: The Surf Atlas
Algarve · Best time: Year-round · All levels
Two coastlines meet here: northerly winds blow offshore on the south-facing beaches, easterlies send you round to the west side. Martinhal and Mareta in the south are sheltered learner beaches, while Tonel and Beliche take the full Atlantic swell — mind the currents swirling around Tonel's rock stack.
Sources: The Surf Atlas