Saturday 29^th September – Cascais

38:41.448N 9:25.138W

Today we didn’t get up at dawn.  We had a leisurely breakfast reading through the map and guide book we’d been given yesterday by the lovely lady in Customs (who has a daughter in Richmond).

We spent the morning looking around Cascais; we started in the marina complex and it is full of all manner of yachtie shops, a couple of banks, a hairdressers and loads of bars and restaurants – even a small on-site supermarket.

We then walked to a local tourist spot up the coast called ‘Boca do Inferno’ meaning ‘Hell’s Mouth’ which is a cavern made by the erosion of the coast by the Atlantic (and owes its name to the sound made by the impact of the waves).

We completed our excursion with a visit to the town.  It is beautiful and caters very well for visitors – even the town hall is labelled in several languages.  The pedestrian streets are all cobbled, the really small cobbles (the trolley would not be happy), and set out in different colours and patterns, even the roads for the vehicles are cobbled.  There are a large number of restaurants and some very expensive looking clothes stores and shoe shops that I didn’t dare go in, for fear of temptation.

The weather forecast had said that wind and rain would arrive by 1pm and, sure enough, at 1pm the rain started and out came the cagoules.  At first it was a fine misty drizzle, which then eased and allowed us time to get back from town.  However this afternoon, as we arrived back at the boat, it turned torrential and the rain has continued the rest of the day until this evening.