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