Yesterday (Saturday) morning Allison and I woke up and decided to finally check out the free breakfast buffet that was included with our Jetsetter package. It’s located in the same beautiful restaurant that we’d previously had dinner in two days before. Wow, what a spread. This buffet had EVERYTHING. I noticed a few distinct breakfast styles from various countries (English, Portuguese, French, American, etc), which may explain the massive amount of options that were available; they were trying to please everyone. If you’re picturing a Las Vegas buffet or something like that, don’t. All of the food was super fresh and you could tell that everything was prepared with care for each individual dish. It’s obvious that this is catering to Europe’s wealthy. They even had 8-10 different kinds of fresh squeezed juice…it was amazing.
After we had a proper breakfast in us, we headed back up to our room to get showered and prepare for our second trip to downtown Cascais. One the first trip down there we had no plans other than exploring the city and taking it all in. Today we were going to try to hit a few of the attractions that Allison read about in one of our travel guides.
The first spot we hit was the Boca do Inferno (aka the Devil’s Mouth), which can best be described as a small point that had with a small cove that had been hollowed out by the ocean. The water comes crashing into the cove and was supposed to create an effect similar to what happens at Steamers in Santa Cruz. The water was pretty calm yesterday so we didn’t get to see that, but the site itself was beautiful and it was a great start to the day.
After the Boca do Inferno we walked along the beautiful Avenida Rei Humberto II de Italia, an avenue that runs right along the coast. We saw some hilarious graffiti and I took a photo next to it (see below).
The graffiti in Portugal is mostly in English and involves a LOT of swearing. Allison and I speculate that English punks who are visiting Portugal probably do the graffiti. The Portuguese people seem much too conservative to do it, and I can’t imagine them wanting to deface a place that they seem to be so proud of. None of the Portuguese people have tattoos, they don’t drink much, they go bed early, and they all seem fairly conservative. They enjoy their sweet wine, desserts, and really just seem to love food in general. Nothing is done to excess, and most of the people here seem happy.
[Photo montage of Chris with various graffiti (and G-Spot restaurant), haha - Al.]
Another interesting thing that Allison and I noticed is that they generally only serve one kind of beer, a beer called Super Bock (and it’s fucking delicious!). Most of the bars have a limited selection of whiskey, vodka, and gin, one or two types of beer, and lots of port wines. This is definitely NOT a country of beer drinkers, except for the futbal fans.
While walking along the Avenida Rei Humberto II de Italia we stumbled upon the Santa Marta Lighthouse and museum. It was a small museum about lighthouses and we checked out the actual lighthouse itself. In the passageway to get to the lighthouse an artist had photographs displayed along the walls with stories about the ocean. Lifeguards and fisherman who had gone through traumatic experiences involving the ocean told many of the stories. The photographs were marginal at best, but the stories were all very interesting. The best story involved an octopus and it’s caretaker. The octopus became so attached to this woman that when she left it to go on vacation, it climbed out of its tank to try to find her and ended up dying. It was a sad story but I found it interesting that octopuses were so intelligent and loyal.
Adjacent to the lighthouse was a historical landmark called the Casa do Santa Maria. It was a large house that a wealthy Portuguese man had built for his daughter Maria in the late 1800’s. The house had hand painted tiles with Catholic imagery adorning the walls, and all in the all it wasn’t too exciting.
Next, we headed a few blocks down to the King D. Carlos Sea Museum. This building used to be a social club for Portugal’s royalty and the wealthy elite back in the eighteen and early nineteen hundreds. Cascais was an extremely popular place for Europe’s royalty during the months of September and October, and this was the “it” place to be a member of. It has since been turned into a really cheesy museum with displays about ocean mammals, Portuguese ships, and other ocean related things. One of the rooms contained several mannequins that were dressed in traditional Portuguese clothing worn by the fisherman. One of the mannequins was dressed particularly hipster-esque, so I took a photo with him. He would have fit in perfectly at Dolores Park drinking a PBR and laying out in the sun.
One interesting thing about all of these tourist sites was that they were all free, and all had docents and attendants available to answer questions. I found it interesting that the entire country seems to be so proud of its history that it wants to make sure all of the people that come to visit are educated about it. At this point, we have not paid to visit a single museum or tourist site. Portuguese people love to show off their art and culture, and they’re very proud of their country.
At this point the tourist sites were starting to feel a bit repetitive so we went in search of a place to grab a drink and bite to eat. We stumbled upon a “chicken” restaurant and grabbed a table outside. We split an order of half-a-chicken and fries, and ordered some Super Bocks and enjoyed the afternoon.
After the restaurant we walked around a bit and ended up stumbling upon the John Bull again so we decided to pop in for another beer. We sat outside and enjoyed our beers and started feeling pretty buzzed. We decided that we wanted to go “buzzed souvenir shopping” since we were both behind on finding souvenirs for our friends and family. We were mostly unsuccessful due to the fact that all of the shops sold the kind of crap that you would find at Fisherman’s Wharf or Ghiradelli Square. It was all a bunch of dumb little trinkets with the word Portugal or Cascais on it (although, I don’t know what I was expecting to find!). I did manage to buy some chocolates for my mom from a little sweet shop, and Allison and I both bought some dishtowels for our moms/Shannon at another little shop.
After a few hours of souvenir shopping it was time for some dinner. I had noticed that there were quite a few Indian restaurants in downtown Cascais and I told Allison I wanted to try one. I absolutely LOVE Indian food so I wanted to see if it was any different in Portugal. We found a place called Masala on one of the tiled side streets and grabbed a table outside. The strong smell of curry was extremely alluring, so we knew we were in for a treat. We ordered some Indian beers called Chakra (they were lagers, and I have to admit they were pretty good!), some saag paneer, and chicken tikka masala. The food was EXCELLENT! The saag paneer was the best that Allison and I have ever had, so we ate our faces off and went into a food coma.
Allison was starting to get tired and we were both getting really cold, so we decided to head back to the hotel. This was where one of our great “dumb tourist” moments happened. We knew that the taxis all headed over near the train station to pick up people that were arriving from other cities, so we made our way over there. I tried hailing down several taxis and noticed that they all ignored me or angrily pointed at other passengers. WTF was going on? Finally after several taxis did this to me, I noticed that there was a taxi stop where people casually waited to be picked up. All of the people at the taxi stop probably thought we were trying to steal their taxis by cutting in line ahead of them. As someone that takes a lot of cabs in San Francisco, I have to say that I like the Portuguese system much better. I’m constantly battling other fucks for cabs, and it seriously pisses me off when someone gets one before me. We finally reached our turn, hopped in, and got a ride back to the Viva Marinha. It was a long day filled with lots of sun, walking, beer and food.
When we got back to the room we were both tired and decided to read for a bit and turn in early. We both slept a solid ten hours and woke up ready for another breakfast at the hotel buffet.
Right now it is around noon and we are waiting until 2pm, when the shuttle will be here to take us back to Sintra. Our goal is to check out one of the sites that we missed last time and eat at the traditional Portuguese restaurant that we weren’t able to eat in last time. The food looked and smelled so amazing, and we could tell the place is good because it was PACKED with locals and all of the other restaurants were literally empty. It’s going to be a real treat!
Allison is feeling tired from all of the running around that we’ve been doing, so we’re going to take it easy today. We both want her to be nice and rested for Lisbon, which we leave for tomorrow. I’m so sad that tonight is our last night here at the Viva Marinha, but it’s been an amazing trip so far. I’m really looking forward to checking out the big city and see what it has to offer. Everyone I’ve met here says that Lisbon is extremely similar to San Francisco, so it should be interesting to see whether that is true or not.
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