clog blog: Sun, sardines and sangria!

Portugal, what a great country! We almost skipped Portugal due to train limitations and I’m so glad we didn’t. Lisbon and Estoril surpassed our expectations and we had a really good time here.

Last week Monday was our first night train experience on the way from Madrid to Lisbon. Hm, an interesting experience! It was a 9 hour journey but definitely not 9 hours of sleep! Our cabin was pretty small but the use of space inside was impressive. Bron naively hoped that there would be a shower somewhere on the train, wishful thinking! At least we had a basin in our cabin. The actual ride wasn’t that smooth and the noise kept us awake a lot of the night but apart from that it wasn’t a bad first experience; it definitely beats a 9 hour flight!

Portugal is one hour behind the rest of Europe, the same time as London and two hours behind SA, so we gained an hour when we arrived. Arriving in the morning gave us an advantage of having an extra day to explore which we spent wandering around the coastal towns of Estoril and Cascais. Tuesday was a beautiful warm day and it was so nice to not need a jacket! We found the Cascais lighthouse, the yacht basin, the land reclaimed from the sea and the Boca de inferno (a hole in the rocks which creates an angry sea!). For lunch we tried the sardines and sangria at a restaurant Justin discovered when he was here in 2006 for an engineering conference. They are very serious about their sangria!

Wednesday was time to explore Lisbon! The first stop was Belém where we visited the Torre de Belém, the Monument to the Discoveries and the Mosterio Dos Jerónimos. Torre de Belém was originally in the middle of the river where it protected Lisbon from an invasion from the sea. Today it is right on the shore and a national monument. The Monument to the Discoveries honours the sea-faring Portuguese explorers who discovered new lands and trade routes, such as Vasco da Gama. Part of the monument is a world map on the ground showing where and when important discoveries were made. The Mosterio is a monastery of the order of Saint Jerome and contains the tomb of Vasco da Gama. We love the Manueline style of the cloister with its archways and depictions of ropes, the cross, images from nature and sea creatures.

We took the tram to the centre of Lisbon where we explored the areas of Baixa and Alfama. Baixa is the area behind the Praça do Comércio where the streets are laid out in a grid, one of the first examples of town planning in Europe. East of Baixa is the Sé Cathedral, Alfama and Castelo de Sáo Jorge. The single yellow trams are a quaint symbol of Lisbon and watching them pass by the Sé added to the scenery. We enjoyed wandering around Alfama with its narrow cobbled streets and tourist shops selling items made of cork and the symbol of Portugal, the chicken. The last stop for the day was Castelo de Sáo Jorge, the remains of a Moorish castle which became a royal residence and later a theatre and prison. The views of Lisbon from the castle were magical and the setting sun made it even more romantic.

Thursday we boarded an early bus headed to Sintra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to many royal castles and palaces. Sintra is a very hilly area and most of the day was spent walking up hills! Although we didn’t go in, the first palace we saw was Palácio Nacional de Sintra. The most striking external feature of this palace is the two large chimneys which protrude from the kitchens below. Much further up the hill is Castelo dos Mouros, a 9^th century Moorish castle. The castle is mostly ruins now, similar to St George’s Castle, and was used as an observation post for monitoring the coastline.

On an adjacent hilltop is Pálacio de Pena, a mixture of colours and architectural styles. We loved this palace! The rooms are a decent size that befits a royal residence (not like the tiny rooms of the Residenz in Munich) and the views from the palace are amazing. We liked the Manueline style and the decorative tiles. The gardens for the palace are magnificent. If we had more time it would have been awesome to explore them more. The last stop for the day was Quinta de Regalaira, the summer residence of the Carvalho Monteiro family. The house is quite large but not much of the original furniture remains. The garden is massive and full of weird and wonderful statues and other wonders. There is a chapel, a lake, a waterfall, caves and tunnels connecting various parts of the garden, castle-like towers and 27m deep wells with stairways to the bottom. Someone in the family was an enthusiastic botanist evidenced by the many different tree and plant species in the garden, including a cycad and a sequoia tree (a ring from a trunk of a giant sequoia tree is in the National History Museum in London). After a full day out it was time to celebrate St Patrick’s day at an Irish Pub in Cascais. Justin felt he deserved a Guinness, or two. We enjoyed the home-made beef and Guinness stew and the live traditional music.

Friday we headed back to Lisbon and visited the Oceanário de Lisboa. The second largest in the world, the oceanarium has one main centre tank and four smaller tanks on each corner of the main tank. The main tank represents the open ocean and the four smaller tanks represent the Atlantic, Antarctic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. We missed the turtles of the Durban aquarium but enjoyed seeing a real manta ray. Our favourites though were the three otters in the Atlantic tank. These guys, girls actually, are so playful and cute! I could watch them all day! They are so fluid and graceful in the water and play with each other all day. They rub their faces, tails and tummies with their hands, so human-like. They really were so cute. Otters eat a third of their body weight each day to maintain an internal body temperature in the cold water but we think it’s because they play so much! The aquarium is well laid out; there is one way traffic through the aquarium and you can view the tanks from above and below. The oceanarium focuses on the plight of our seas and educating people on awareness and smart consumer choices. We really enjoyed our visit to the oceanarium and highly recommend it! The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering through the streets of Alfama soaking up the atmosphere before it was time to head back to pack and get ready to move onto Paris on Saturday.

Portugal was much warmer than the rest of Europe and even Spain. We enjoyed soaking up the sun and not needing a big jacket! Although the wind cooled things down quite a lot. Our hotel room had a 180° view of Estoril, the ocean and Cascais. When we weren’t exploring, we enjoyed our relaxing chill-out time in the sun on our balcony watching the view. One of our other favourite things in Portugal was our mission to try as many of the traditional custard pastries, pasteis de nata, at as many different bakeries as possible! Clearly we have to be more serious next time as we only managed about 6 in one day. We loved the colourful decorative tiles used everywhere; covering whole buildings and used signs. However, we do not approve of the public toilets! The public loo’s in Italy, Spain and Portugal leave a lot to be desired. I eventually got used to no toilet seat but one public loo at Cascais took the cake. It was a stand-alone corrugated metal building with only a porcelain bowl in it. However, it was not obvious how to use the toilet as the bowl did not have a pipe leading from it or an obvious way of flushing it. Definitely not ayoba!

On Saturday we braved airport security for a flight to Paris. Paris is sunny but not as warm as Portugal! We are in Paris for 6 nights until Friday when we head back to Rotterdam. We have a preliminary furniture delivery date of 11 April which should be confirmed this week and means that we only have one week in Rotterdam with no furniture, yay! On this week’s agenda is to find sleeping bags! At least our new place has a fridge and a washing machine.

We will not have internet the first little while in Rotterdam until we get sorted. If we don’t manage to post a Paris blog before the end of the week, apologies! It will follow as soon as we have internet again. And our blog will not stop just because we are back in Rotterdam, we will keep you informed of ‘going Dutch’.

Hope you are well and had a good weekend! Have a good week ahead!

Until next time, au revoire!