Saturday, September 28, 2019

Last day: Sintra and Cascais

Olá!

Beautiful weather again for our last day. Visit to Sintra. Built on a mountain that was once a volcano. Celtics originally lived in Sintra; the name means Moon Goddess Mountain or Moon Goddess Village. 

   

One of the first residents of Sintra was Lord Byron who called it his “glorious Eden”. His friend Hans Christian Andersen and the composer, Wagner also joined him here. 

 

Ginja is a specialty of Sintra. It it a cherry liquor served in a chocolate cup. Enough said. 

View of the village. Palace way up top.


Sintra’s climate is similar to England, cool, misty and rainy. The Celtics eventually abandoned Sintra in search of Lisbon’s warmer weather. King John I took a wife from England, Princess Filippe, who was 12 at the time. She was sad because she missed England (or because she was married at 12....). Others told the King about this area, so the King took her to Sintra. She loved the weather so he built her a little summer home. Built 500 years ago, the small cottage has 120 rooms. 

The larger Pena Palace was built in the 19th century. Our guide called it a Disney castle because there are many colors and styles in the design of the castle. They basically copied elements from every cool thing they’d ever seen. Spanish, Arabic, Italian influences and more. 

    

 

 
The window with the Triton on the left represents the 4 elements: water (coral and half man/half fish), earth (the vines).  They described air and fire but I think that’s a stretch - I’m not seeing it. On the right is a courtyard; the only place inside that photos were allowed. 


Deb, Cindy, Barb, Lori, Michelle, Sheila
Deb, Cindy, Sheila, Michelle, Laura
Then a stop along the coastline at Guincho Beach. A surfing competition will be held there next week. 

   
Below in the distance is Cabo de Roca; the point where the land meets the sea is the Western most point of Europe:


Cascais (pronounced cash-keish)

Lunch at this restaurant. Great dish including monkfish, rice and prawns baked in a clay pot. And wine. There was wine. 


  


I think it’s just a coincidence that the wine bottle is at our end of the table. 

       
Shopping and a beach!

So Ian Fleming was a frequent visitor to Cascais and stayed in the “spy hotel” when in town while working for the British Secret Service during WWII. He had a good friend who was a Russian spy, Popov, who went by the code name of 007 and told lots of great stories. Fleming was inspired to write Casino Royale from his time here. But he needed a name for his hero and turned to another English writer friend who wrote books about birds. His name was James Bond. (Sounds to me like Ian Fleming didn’t need much of an imagination). An English actor, David Niven was the first James Bond, in that one movie only. 

The King built this Casino for his amusement. Today only open from 3 pm - 3 am.

Other famous people from The Cascais area: Grace Kelly, Orson Wells, Wallis Simpson. 

Random trivia:
  • Much of Portugal is based on Arabic. The Portuguese word for olive oil is Azeite (pronounced eh-zite)
  • Cascais means “little shell village”
  • Queen Maria who lived in Pena Palace had 11 children and died at age 35 giving birth to #11. Many of the children died because (unbeknownst to them, of course) the wet nurse had tuberculosis (oops). Her last surviving son, King Charles the First was the last King to live in the castle. The Monarchy ended in 1910 when it became a republic. 
  • Scrambled eggs here are in the style of Gordon Ramsey: runny and inedible. (But the made-to-order omelettes at the Tivoli were very good!)
Farewell Dinner
  

We met some wonderful people on the tour. Sad to leave Portugal and not looking forward to our 15-hour travel day that starts at 2:45 tomorrow morning!

Adeus, Portugal!

Home at last!
Sorry, no photos of our travel day. We “got up” at 2:00 am to leave for the airport and had a 15-hour travel day. (No one wants to see pics of that!) 

But more importantly, a photo of my favorite chocolates that are sold in the Paris airport....



Grateful for good friends to travel with, husbands who only give us a tiny bit of grief about it, two uneventful flights each way, great weather and a chance to visit Portugal!






Sept 28, 2019
























Friday, September 27, 2019

Lisboa

Not pronounced Lisbon here. Lisboa. 

This aquaduct runs 28 miles from Lisbon to Sintra. The water comes from the springs in the mountains of Sintra. We saw the beginning of the aquaduct when we visited there. 




This is the Tower of Belem where the navigators would pay the taxes before unloading their cargo at Commerce Square. This was also where they would defend the entrance to the city. 


This is a monument to overseas combatants. Names of the 9000 Portuguese who died in service between 1909 and 2009 are on the walls. There are 2 live guards and an eternal flame. 



They are big on churches here, which is not surprising since Portugal was owned by the church until 1800. Still today, 80% of Portuguese are Catholic. This is the Monastery of St Jerome, more commonly known as the Monastery of Pepper. Pepper was more valuable than gold at this time. It took 100 years for this to be built. It’s important because the sailors would come into port and party with prostitutes on Friday night, then come here to mass and to confess on Sunday (we’re  not making this up!).

Also a fun tradition is for single women to drown a statue of St Anthony in a cup of water. They rescue him when they have found a husband. (Not so different than putting a rosary in a bush for good weather or burying St Joseph to sell your house....). 



This is the tomb of Vasco da Gama:


These are the bones of Luis Camoes (mixed in apparently with some other random bones), who was a great Portuguese poet. 


A Portuguese Olympian won a medal and this memorial was created. Picture postcard of Portugal (better with Michigan Girls and our Canadian friend, Laura)!

      

So when the church no longer owned all of Portugal, the monks were kicked out of their Monasteries and began selling furniture and documents, etc to live. One of the things they sold was the recipe for traditional custard tarts. Only 5 people have the recipe: two owners and 3 bakers of Pastéis de Belem. Custard tarts are available all over Portugal, but if you don’t get them here, they are but a cheap imitation. (A delicious imitation). But these were extremely yummy. 



This is the secret recipe, but of course some ingredients are missing or it wouldn’t be secret! (And it’s in Portuguese so good luck with that.)

    

Yum!!

Michelle and Sheila along with new friend Laura, attended the Fado dinner with the group. Fado is a mournful style of music for which Portugal is famous. 

   

 

Deb, Lori, Cindy and I had dinner at a great Italian (?!) restaurant across the street from the hotel in an area called The Bull Ring. This is where they hold bull fights. There was an event tonight and Cindy and Lori were ready to grab a sign and join the protesters wanting to “liberate the animals”. 



Lisboa!

Tomorrow: last full day. Back on the bus for about an hour to Sinatra, and farewell dinner. 




9/27/2019