Cascais—Last Full Day

Today we dinked around town, walking down to the park again after breakfast at Cafe Da Eli, and after meandering through the park and neighborhoods we sat on a bench opposite McDonalds watching folks make their way to the main shopping street. We're just wasting some time today, because we've seen most of Cascais. Did a bit of wading along Praia da Rainha though.

Lots of people on the beach sunbathing and swimming. European public schools started their two week break October 22nd, and many Northern Europeans are here with their kids relaxing in the sun, paddle boarding, swimming, making sand castles and clearly pleased Cascais isn't as packed with tourists as the summer months.

We mixed it up this morning adding ham and cheese to 

our croissant.

The young woman who served us yesterday remembered my
order from yesterday. She delivered this wryly saying, "More
coffee than milk." and I responded with "You bet obrigado."

It's October 24th and can you see
the butterfly?

Neighborhood streets on our way
to the park.

Found art inside the park. It's the Earth made from beach plastic.

Sculpture of mom lifting child.

Peacocks roam the park.

Guimaraes Castle's backsides is a gothic knock off built in 1902
by Jorge O'Neil, the same tobacco baron who built the House of
St. Mary across the street on the seaside of the bridge. Today the
Castro Guimaraes Museum displays varied 17th century items
and a 16th century illustrated manuscript of Henry the
Navigator's exploits.

The beach at the rear of Castro Guimares Museum is lovely 

and nearly private. When the tide is high the beach disappears.

These people were visiting under the bridge after a swim. 

Chickens, ducks, peacocks freely wander the park. 

Enjoyed the narrow streets near

the park and Cascais Citadel, look-

ing for inviting places.

Places like these two.

Or this one or...

...this one overlooking the harbor...

...stepping out the door to the city center, beach, and harbor.

Bank of public phones at the mall. So nostalgic!

Back at Nudle Ramen House for linner. I had the chicken

and vegetable ramen dish...

...and Marie had the tofu and veggie ramen dish.

This market was taking place in the parking lot of the Cascais

Fish Market, but instead of Monday's flea market, this was all 

about inexpensive clothes, shoes, bedding, & household items. 

Tomorrow we travel, catching a local bus from our apartment to the Cascais train station and a 40 minute train trip where we'll connect with the Lisbon Metro at Cas de Sodre where we'll end up at Oriente Train station where we'll catch a Rede Expresso bus to Albufeira. All-in-all, we're talking five hours of traveling fun.

Cascais to Belem—October 23, 2018

Today we thought we'd break up our time here with a trip to Belem to see if we could get into the Jeronimos Monastery and Santa Maria Church. Last year, the lines were so long we skipped both. The good news is that we were able to see the church, but as you'll see from my video clip below, we passed on the line for the monastery. Another time perhaps.

We walked down to LX Factory (click here last year's pics here) to see what's new and on our way back, we walked up a street looking for a place for lunch/dinner (i.e. linner) and found a new place that was fabulous. We enjoy getting off the primary tourist route and discovering what a neighborhood has to offer. So far, we haven't been disappointed. Didn't feel like it, but when we got home later in the afternoon, I discovered we walked 7.2 miles today. Maybe it didn't seem that much, because we broke up the day with a train ride to and from Belem.

Cafe Da Eli just across the street from us was open this morning 

so we gave it a try and we're glad we did. We met Maria, a poet,

children's author, and TV & radio personality. She handed us a

book entitled Lisbon Urban Sketches and said, "For you." We

recognized it right away; we thumbed through it last year. So

we took a closer look and after breakfast handed it back, thank-

ing her and she said, "No it's for you to have. I have many books."

And then we had a lovely chat and are looking forward to seeing

her again tomorrow morning.

The line for Jeronimos Monastery. Click

here to see Rick Steves' episode about it.

Start it at 17:10min. That's probably as

close as we'll get to seeing inside as well.

Because Santa Maria Church doesn't have an entrance fee we were able to walk right in. Last year, even the line for the church was excessive. It's crowded, but because the church is massive, you don't notice the crowd until trying to take a picture. Construction on Santa Maria and Jeronimos Monastery was begun in 1501 and finished 100 years later. The architectural style is Late Gothic Manueline—think over-the-top wedding cake decoration up the wing-wang! It's an impressive church all the same.

Luis Vaz de Camoes, one of Portugal's
greatest poets (1524-1580) captured
the exploits of Portuguese navigators,
especially Vasco da Gama in his epic
poem "Os Lusíadas". This work is
often compared to Virgil's "Aeneid".

 

This 1938 pipe organ is the only
mismatched item in this church.

Vasco de Gama's tomb.

St. Anthony Chapel was gilded with
gold, probably from Brazil, in the
late 17th century.

The side entrance to Santa Maria is 105'
high and 40' wide and the Manueline
(i.e. wedding cake) style is impressive.

I took this video to give you a sense of the line for the monastery.

We left the line behind and starting walking to LX Factory.
This wisteria was wrapped around the fence of the former
municipal library.

Keep your eyes peeled for cool art scattered around LX Factory.

LX Factory is a wild & crazy place.

The applause sign cost 74 Euros.

Pink doves take flight over the street.

We found this place up a tree-lined street on our way back to
catch the train back to Cascais. Our goal was to find a good
place for our midday meal and we did. We weren't sure about
it at first, because of what it said under it's name, but when
we read the menu posted outside, we knew we had a winner.

By the time we remembered to snap a pic of the bruschetta

this is all that was left of it. This one's Marie's. They came
on a cutting board floating in fresh pesto & olive oil. OMG!

And this is what's left of mine.

We also shared a Caesar salad with tandoori chicken. The
salads are huge so we share them.

We actually had room today for dessert, sharing this pana cotta

with blackberry preserves.

And that did it for us. We enjoyed an espresso afterward and that helped fortify us for the two mile walk back to the Belem Train Station.