Cascais
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Fri 6 Aug 2010 11:47
Monday we went to Sintra, a beautiful town full of Moorish influenced palaces, gardens and monasteries - see photos below taken in the National Palace of Sintra. Lord Byron was probably the most famous visitor so lots of cafes etc are named after him. He called it a 'glorious Eden' - it would be very easy to spend a long weekend here exploring the many palaces and gardens and the winding streets and alleys.
These photos were taken just outside the National Palace of Sintra in the middle of the old town.
Cascais itself is a great seaside resort, loads of restaurants in the main areas as well as a few very small ones tucked away off the main tourist trails. There are also some great shops but they all have their winter clothes in now which aren't much good in this heat!!
Last night the wind picked up to about 36 knots, and as I am writing this it has picked up again to about the same, lots of clattering, banging and squeaking again tonight!! We have been advised that some stormy weather was due to come through and it's looks as though they may have got it right this time! Despite the wind the weather is warm and sunny. The girls are planning on hitting the beach tomorrow and John and I will continue our way through our seemingly never ending lists of jobs - it's a hard life!!
For a bit of culture and a change from sunbathing we decided to visit Lisbon. The city is full of parks, squares and lots of statues! We did the really touristy bit and got on the hop on-hop off open top bus tour round most of the city and out along the riverside. It was a bit too hot at 37 degrees to walk too far. The bus tour gave us a good overview of Lisbon and again it is somewhere to head for the weekend when it's a bit cooler.
The picture on the left is one of the big monasteries in Lisbon and looked fabulous but the queues was huge and outside in the heat and so we decided to give it a miss. The photo on the right, just for clarification, shows the temperature, not the speed of the traffic!!!