Mira Daire - an anonymous preciosity
This Summer we stayed in Portugal for two weeks. We flew from Copenhagen to Lisbon with TAP, excellent service and it took us only about 3 and a half hours. The flight begun at (the horror) 6 am!!! So between the bird early flight and the time difference we were done with the car rental by 10:00.
Now I wont lie to you. I am a planer, the kind that literally comes to the airport with a folder containing all tickets, rental plans, and so on... So the plan was to drive from the airport to this place I had only driven by and wished to visit, Mira Daire. It took us just over an hour to arrive, because Lisbon traffic is quite ok at 10 am, the highways in Portugal are pretty good and the GPS took us right on the target.
Now if you are the kind of traveller that want to see more than beaches and bars in Portugal I recommend the caves at Mira Daire, but you do need some help. For starters the village has three ways of writing its name: Mira Daire, Mira de Aire and... Mira D'aire. All three are the same place!
I had booked a bungalow for our family. The bungalows are located near the exit from the caves, about 300 meters down road from the entrance to the caves.
Just press the bungalow you like and fill in the form. The guy ahead of the bookings will answer you personally. Here's some help to fill in the form:
nome = name
data de entrada = check in date
transcreva os seguintes números = write the following numbers
The cave visit was really nice, just ask for a guide that speaks english. Our guide was not that good, he spoke like he was bored, we had a good laugh at it. The caves however are stunning!!! My poor Iphone 4's camera does not do any justice to the beauty of the caves.
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| The little pool |
Mira Daire is a small, very small village located in the top of a mountain. The company that has the rights to the guided visits also owns a nice restaurant and gift shop just by the entrance of the caves and owns the bungalows. My kids loved the gift shop. But they loved even more the water park that is just downstairs from the bungalow area. You see, we could be at the water park certain hours for free. If you ask my kids, the water park is the best thing about Mira Daire. For us adults it was great too. Not too small not too big, just perfect for our 6 and 10 years old children to play and practice their swimming after a day of adventures.
I loved the bungalows. We had a table outside and it was perfect to eat outside. We could do basic cooking so we enjoyed a few meals looking over the forest and the sunset over the mountains. Just outside the village you can find a bigger grocery store or you can buy food in the smaller village stores.
I loved the bungalows. We had a table outside and it was perfect to eat outside. We could do basic cooking so we enjoyed a few meals looking over the forest and the sunset over the mountains. Just outside the village you can find a bigger grocery store or you can buy food in the smaller village stores.
Outside the bungalow we had our own garden as you can see on the pictures.
So we were there for two nights and we loved it. Just book ahead and ask the locals. Have fun!
