Day 1 - Portugal!
Made it! A long but very smooth travel day to our first stop in Portugal. I’m always a little nervous when I have a lot of connections but traveling with just a carryon and personal item at least on the way over is consolation that worst case scenario my luggage and I will always be together. My worries were for naught because things couldn’t have gone smoother.
I’ll be spending the next few weeks with my dear friend, partner in fun, inspiration in how to live a life of adventure and joy - Julie!
We’re here! We didn’t plan to dress alike - it was just a lucky coincidence. Hello Cascais Portugal!
This is my second time in Portugal, but the first time I spent the majority of my time in Lisbon, a beautiful city. This time we will be seeing more of the central and southern part of this tiny but spectacular country.
After arrival and getting to the hotel we changed into lighter weight clothing as the weather is still quite warm and very sunny. We walked down the promenade from the resort town of Estoril to Cascais - considered to be the French Riviera of Portugal. Portugal is a small country with a beautiful coastline - where much of Europe travels to in August for their holiday. September is a great time to visit since it is less crowded but still great weather.
I love to paddle board but have never seen a group paddle board. 8 people on this one which looked so fun - till they all fell off!
We loved Cascais! Portugal is well known for many things - wine, cork, explorers (Cristopher Columbus) and tile. Many of the buildings have beautiful tile designs and the streets are works of art with cobblestone designs.
The street looks bumpy but wasn’t. So cool!
Time for lunch. I wanted to look up a recommendation on Yelp, but Julie insisted we use our gut so we got off the main drag and found a place that we both loved. House of Wonders was indeed a wonder. The owner was a warm engaging woman with a great enthusiasm for her amazing creations - all vegetarian made with ingredients freshly available that morning. An added bonus is that we got to enjoy our amazing meal and a glass on wine on the rooftop overlooking the tile roofs of Cascais and the boats on the water. Her artistic ability was also evident from the beautiful space she had created all through her restaurant.
We shared two dishes, one hot and one cold. The cold was an assortment of every salad available that day - all delicious. The warm was all green. The base was puréed spinach, goat cheese and spices baked and topped with blanched broccoli, avocado and a cooked egg. Portugal is really known for wine - especially red so I’m planning to leave my comfort zone and try some while we’re here. But today went with what they refer to as green wine - because it’s white that is very fresh and not aged. Loved it!
Now for dessert! I’ve been dreaming of the Portuguese egg tarts since my last visit in 2016. I couldn’t wait to have them again. Pastel de nata is worth a trip to Portugal. Think creme brûlée in a flaky pastry crust topped with cinnamon and powder sugar. Fantastic!
Be still my heart 💕 I’m holding it in the palm of my hand to give you a sense of size. Then I swallowed it in two or three bites. Pretty sure I will have at least one every day I’m here! Maybe two😊
Just a few more fun pictures from our walk.
Top left - a beautiful building with a stunning wall artistically decorated with broken glass - scaling that would hurt! Top right - good to know if a tsunami hits we can evacuate safely😱 Bottom left - more beautiful cobblestones. Bottom right - sardines! Portugal is also known for sardines and this entire store was full of the most beautiful tins of all kinds of canned fish. Going to work up my culinary courage and try them while here.
Sand art! This artist was working on this on our walk back along the promenade. Wow!
Next up a very short nap - just 50 minutes since it’s so important to tough out the big time change on day one. I took a shower and we headed out for dinner. Lots of fish here and I plan to enjoy lots of it.
First course was a kale soup, main course Hake fish (in the cod family) and potatoes, an almond tart for dessert. Wine of course with a nice glass of port as the finale. All delicious.
So that was our day! A good nights sleep and ready to roll for day two. I’ll do my best to blog frequently so thanks for coming along!