October 12, 2014: Evershifting
Today felt like a day of contrasts as we took an optional morning tour to Sintra and Cascais. It was pouring when we left Lisbon, which was a bit of a disappointment for all of us. As we travelled, we passed the big box store area (none are allowed in the city limits area.) Climbing up the mountains? hills? to Sintra, the places started getting fancier again. Sintra has both old castle ruins (the original summer palace of the royalty) and a newer fancy palace that shows up in all the postcards. Unfortunately, it was still pouring in Sintra AND the line for the palace was quite long. So we wandered up the street to Piriquita II to try the famous Travesseiros de Sintra (Sintra Pillow) - delicious puff pastries filled with egg and almond cream. (Ooops, googling the pastry name made me realize that we were supposed to go to the original Piriquita, not the second store up the street. Ah well.) We also got hot chocolate, which was more like a drink made from melted chocolate bars - very thick and delicious. Unfortunately, it was far too much to each finish, but it was tasty.
We stopped briefly into a store to look at the cork products that Portugal is famous for - soft feeling products - hats, bags, etc. But they didn’t have a hat that fit Jenn, and I decided that 35 euros was too much for a wallet and 120 euros too much for a messenger bag. Also, we’re not bringing home souvenirs for anyone.
From there, we drove through this beautiful national park - Parque e Palacio Nacional de Pena along the tops of the mountains/hills. There were granite rocks/boulders everywhere from the original volcanic eruption that produced the mountains long ago. Even better, heather was blooming in random patches! I don’t think we got a picture because of the rain, but it was lovely.
We drove down out of the parks and mountains through Malviera and suddenly out at the coast at Guincho. Wow! It was truly stunning. The waves were just going crazy in the weather. It was absolutely gorgeous. To our left were long sand dunes. Thankfully we were allowed out of the bus if we wanted to take a picture. Of course we wanted! It was truly incredible to see these huge waves crashing. In the background was Cabo da Roca, the most western point of continental Europe. The wind was very intense, stealing away my lens cap (oops!) and almost taking Jenn’s hat. But it was that very rawness of nature that made it a wondrous moment.
Sadly we had to go back in too soon, and we weren’t allowed out for any other pictures of the coastline, which was of course of most interest to me. We didn’t even stop at Baco de Inferno (The Devil’s Mouth) were water surges through a natural arch in the rock. Ah well. Maybe someday we’ll come back and drive it ourselves to stop for those pictures. I doubt it, by maybe.
Our lunch break was in Cascais where it finally stopped raining. We took a few pictures of the harbor, a fancy sand castle, a wall full of flowers, and the town hall, but then we headed to Don Manolo’s for chicken piri piri. It seems like they get a lot of tourists, but the half roast chicken in piri-piri sauce is absolutely delicious. Mmmmmm. Now I want more.
Finally, we came back along the ocean coast. The houses on the way were phenomenally fancy. As Laura kept joking, “Very poor people live there.” Plus it was just nice to see the ocean on the drive. At the mouth of the Targus River, we turned in to come back the quicker way, but that was okay at that point. Both of us were tired and my leg was feeling a bit cranky. So Jenn has been napping while I typed this, and I’m sitting on the bed with my legs propped up on pillows in front of me. I’ve very glad we took this optional trip.
…..
Despite me feeling a bit guilty about it, we did not end up going out this afternoon. Jenn was just completely beat. And I honestly just wanted to relax and keep my legs up (they’re pretty swollen). I even took a short nap myself. It would have been nice to see the ruins of Carmon Convent, but we got to see a bit of them from the top of the Castle yesterday. And while I liked the aqueduct museum, it wasn’t a must-see. I just suck at relaxing. I blame my mom. ;-) However, after napping and whatnot, we did go for a swim. The whirlpool was the same temperature as the regular pool, though! Boo.
Clean but hungry, we set out for dinner. The original plan was to eat on this block, but other than the coffee shop, everything was closed. The next closest place was fish. We ended up walking really far away (1.5 miles - yikes! though we did pause often for looking at menus), but we got to see the Commerce Plaza, which was something I apparently wanted to do more than I thought.
We ended up at the Museu da Cerveja (translated: Beer Museum), mostly because the decorations were interesting, we were tired, and it looked like they had bread or potato stuffed with cheese. However, we found out really fast that the breaded potato stuffed with cheese was not what it appeared. Not only was it not really potato, but rather mixed with some sort of fish, the cheese (Queijo da Serra) was kinda sour and gross. Ah well. The steaks we got were good tasting at least. Chewy, but they tasted good. Since we were at the Beer Museum, I also got a Pret (dark) beer that was made there. It was pretty good, though Jenn sniffed it and decided it wasn’t even worth trying.
Instead of just heading back, we went off in search of dessert. We ended up at Amorino gelato (which supposedly has a store in NYC, though we had not come across it there). Jenn had chocolate and caramel inside a crepe, and I had chocolate hazelnut and cherry inside a foccacina (sweet bread). Jenn’s was better. We walked the little bit back up to Praca Rossi and cabbed it back to pack and sleep.
We stopped briefly into a store to look at the cork products that Portugal is famous for - soft feeling products - hats, bags, etc. But they didn’t have a hat that fit Jenn, and I decided that 35 euros was too much for a wallet and 120 euros too much for a messenger bag. Also, we’re not bringing home souvenirs for anyone.
From there, we drove through this beautiful national park - Parque e Palacio Nacional de Pena along the tops of the mountains/hills. There were granite rocks/boulders everywhere from the original volcanic eruption that produced the mountains long ago. Even better, heather was blooming in random patches! I don’t think we got a picture because of the rain, but it was lovely.
We drove down out of the parks and mountains through Malviera and suddenly out at the coast at Guincho. Wow! It was truly stunning. The waves were just going crazy in the weather. It was absolutely gorgeous. To our left were long sand dunes. Thankfully we were allowed out of the bus if we wanted to take a picture. Of course we wanted! It was truly incredible to see these huge waves crashing. In the background was Cabo da Roca, the most western point of continental Europe. The wind was very intense, stealing away my lens cap (oops!) and almost taking Jenn’s hat. But it was that very rawness of nature that made it a wondrous moment.
Sadly we had to go back in too soon, and we weren’t allowed out for any other pictures of the coastline, which was of course of most interest to me. We didn’t even stop at Baco de Inferno (The Devil’s Mouth) were water surges through a natural arch in the rock. Ah well. Maybe someday we’ll come back and drive it ourselves to stop for those pictures. I doubt it, by maybe.
Our lunch break was in Cascais where it finally stopped raining. We took a few pictures of the harbor, a fancy sand castle, a wall full of flowers, and the town hall, but then we headed to Don Manolo’s for chicken piri piri. It seems like they get a lot of tourists, but the half roast chicken in piri-piri sauce is absolutely delicious. Mmmmmm. Now I want more.
Finally, we came back along the ocean coast. The houses on the way were phenomenally fancy. As Laura kept joking, “Very poor people live there.” Plus it was just nice to see the ocean on the drive. At the mouth of the Targus River, we turned in to come back the quicker way, but that was okay at that point. Both of us were tired and my leg was feeling a bit cranky. So Jenn has been napping while I typed this, and I’m sitting on the bed with my legs propped up on pillows in front of me. I’ve very glad we took this optional trip.
…..
Despite me feeling a bit guilty about it, we did not end up going out this afternoon. Jenn was just completely beat. And I honestly just wanted to relax and keep my legs up (they’re pretty swollen). I even took a short nap myself. It would have been nice to see the ruins of Carmon Convent, but we got to see a bit of them from the top of the Castle yesterday. And while I liked the aqueduct museum, it wasn’t a must-see. I just suck at relaxing. I blame my mom. ;-) However, after napping and whatnot, we did go for a swim. The whirlpool was the same temperature as the regular pool, though! Boo.
Clean but hungry, we set out for dinner. The original plan was to eat on this block, but other than the coffee shop, everything was closed. The next closest place was fish. We ended up walking really far away (1.5 miles - yikes! though we did pause often for looking at menus), but we got to see the Commerce Plaza, which was something I apparently wanted to do more than I thought.
We ended up at the Museu da Cerveja (translated: Beer Museum), mostly because the decorations were interesting, we were tired, and it looked like they had bread or potato stuffed with cheese. However, we found out really fast that the breaded potato stuffed with cheese was not what it appeared. Not only was it not really potato, but rather mixed with some sort of fish, the cheese (Queijo da Serra) was kinda sour and gross. Ah well. The steaks we got were good tasting at least. Chewy, but they tasted good. Since we were at the Beer Museum, I also got a Pret (dark) beer that was made there. It was pretty good, though Jenn sniffed it and decided it wasn’t even worth trying.
Instead of just heading back, we went off in search of dessert. We ended up at Amorino gelato (which supposedly has a store in NYC, though we had not come across it there). Jenn had chocolate and caramel inside a crepe, and I had chocolate hazelnut and cherry inside a foccacina (sweet bread). Jenn’s was better. We walked the little bit back up to Praca Rossi and cabbed it back to pack and sleep.