Portugal trip, travel day and day 1
Left last Tuesday from Dallas @ 6pm, made it to Madrid around 11am, 4 hour layover and then Lisbon by 4:30pm. Took a cab to Cascais and made it to our villa around 6:00pm. Owner of the property was busy 'til 7 so we tossed our luggage behind some bushes and took a little walk. We stumbled upon a cafe (which you can find about 3 per city block) but this one was by far our favorite due to proximity, friendliness and quality. We had a quiche and a cafe duplo (double expresso) and i hit this spot at least twice a day as cafe was only 0,60 Euro or about 80 cents. All the cafes had pastries, fried meat pies (pork, beef, or seafood), and breads with cured meats. A good portion of them sold fresh food as well.
1st full day, jumped on the bikes that our villa provided and had 2 locations in mind and a rough direction to head. My word it was all downhill and very steep. Made it to the seawalk, for lack of better word, and headed for the Boca do Inferno. This is a place where the strong tides and currents have bore through the rock wall along the coast and created the "mouth of hell." Pretty cool to watch the waves hit these rocks and sent spray 40' in the air.
from there, we continued on until we arrived into the shopping/historical district of Cascais which centerpiece is an old citadel converted into a highly upscale hotel and boutique. Come to find out, Cascais is a favorite retreat for most of Europe's rich and elite. Anyways, found my 1st taste of the high quality of Portuguese seafood at Esplanada Sta Maria, which is across an inlet from Casa de Sta Marta, a historic site of sorts although we toured it and it boored. Boiled shrimp, goat cheese, fresh grilled halibut (hhhhhnnnnngggghhhh) & sangria
went into the shopping district, found a cool wine shop that I would return to on our last day in Cascais to buy for bottles of Tawny Port to take back through customs, window shopped and then headed for the tourism center and bought our bus, train & subway passes for the rest of the stay. At about 5, we headed back for our villa, uphill after a liter of sangria and a belly full of food, ass was kicked by the time we made it back.
Rode past a place that looked good for dinner, saw the sign that said it didn't open until 7:30 so that gave us time to refresh and relax. Went to dinner, had a little bit of a language issue. Waiter assured us he understood everything we were saying. We ordered the shrimp and rice. Big mistake. When we had asked if the garlic shrimp were served with anything he told us rice so that is what we thought we were ordering. So he brought us our moscatel (similar to a port) and our shrimp, it was delicious. We ate every last bite and were stuffed. We set our plates aside and he quickly took them away. Then he set fresh plates and silverware down and my wife and i look at each other like wtf. And he brought us the rice. It was a soupy rice with chuncks of fish and shrimp. So i guess we ordered 3 or four dishes because the rice is only served for 2. And then we had the 2 shrimp dishes. Needless to say we could not eat it all and had it boxed but it was so freaking good as well.
okay, so by this time i know a couple of things
-1 kilometer from the Estoril Coast has a lot of hills in it
-Portuguese have the seafood thing down to a science
-for such small streets, the drivers are the most courteous I've encountered, especially when dealing with pedestrians and bikers
-Portuguese are overly friendly people, not just the ones you are buying stuff from
-ice is not really a thing here, unless it is in a pitcher of sangria
will try to post another couple days worth tomorrow
