The weather here in Lisbon in early/mid-October has been nothing short of perfect. That was all due to change in a couple of weeks, so we aimed to take full advantage of it while we could, realizing that we wouldn’t always be staying in historic capital cities and that winter’s just around the corner.
Every morning lately, we’ve been greeted by brilliant sunshine in the front room of our apartment.
Our Euro-African Journey (So Far...)
Lisbon’s main attractions are clustered around three areas: The ancient Alfama, the central Baixa/Chiado/Bairro Alto neighborhoods, and the Belem district. In our first week, we concentrated mainly on the second of those areas.
To get there from our apartment, is a 40-50 minute walk, or a 15-minute metro (subway) ride. We like to try and do the walk into town (it’s downhill that direction) and the metro back. That makes for some full days, averaging around 15,000 steps in the past week. There’s a lot to see!
Not sure what CNN Portugal was thinking when they plopped $100,000 worth of equipment next to Riley. To Riley’s credit, he didn’t touch anything, but you could tell the wheels were turning.
Lisbon’s distinctive Rossio train terminal. And inside the foyer of the station?
A Ginja stand.
When we saw this, we had no idea what it was. The description in English said “Sour cherry liquor”. At €1 for a small cup, we thought it was worth a try. Interesting stuff, not unlike NyQuil. We came to find later that it’s a famous beverage of Portugal. Lori and I agreed we’d stick with Port.
Rossio plaza is a busy and happening place in the center of the city—a quintessential European plaza adorned with all sorts of artwork and statues of dead people, and surrounded by old Neo-classical buildings.
The sun rises late here right now (just after 7am), and Lori catches them all from her living room perch.
On our third day in town, we thought we’d hop a regional train west to the famous Portuguese beach town of Cascais.
I didn’t really want to travel there on a Saturday, but the weather was forecast to be sunny and in the upper 80s, the hottest of the week. Sounded like a good day to head to the beach regardless.
The train from Cais do Sodre station to Cascais took us just over 40 minutes and cost €2.45 per adult.
The best part is we’re able to use the same yellow card on pretty much everything in town (subway, bus, tram, train), which is very different than anywhere in Mexico.
We initially didn’t have seats, as we hopped on a train departing right away (we could have waited 10 minutes and gotten seats on the next train, which is what we did on the return journey).
A few stops in at Belem, half the train’s passengers emptied and we had our pick of seats. The best views are definitely on the south side facing the Tejo River and Atlantic.
After disembarking, we made our way to the nearest beach, which is what I always imagined a European beach to look like.
At 65 degrees, the water is a tad bit chilly for our tastes, but there were plenty of people swimming. We could easily have found a nice little patch of sand to park ourselves for the remainder of the day, but we had our sights set on exploring much more of the town.
For their part, the boys did get a chance to explore some of the nooks and crannies around the beach before continuing on.
Once a favorite seaside home to the Portuguese royal family, Cascais is an upmarket enclave with some of the highest real estate prices in the country.
The main walking street through town was pretty crowded, but it was easy to lose the crowds, even on a Saturday, by veering off into the labyrinthine side alleys that make up much of Old Cascais.
Many of the pathways lead to either beaches or viewpoints of beaches. There are a lot of beaches in this town.
The center of town is built around a small harbor and marina, both of which are watched over by the Cascais Citadel, a previous royal residence.
Hungry, we stumbled upon Melody, a small Portuguese eatery with reasonable prices. We ordered the half chicken off the Prato do Dia (plate of the day) menu, and a plate of Portuguese sausage. The chicken was excellent. The sausage was gamey and not our thing.
The boys got a kick out of the tap water in wine glasses. Don’t think they’ve had that before.
The meio frango (half chicken) and fries were just how I remember them from Mozambique. Something about Portuguese chicken that sets it apart. It’s delicious.
A lot of these places serve pate with the bread rolls, which we also haven’t developed a taste for. We’ll see if that changes any in the next several months.
The Cascais Citadel is a top attraction in town. The boys have toured a lot of old forts in the past year, but it was still worth a look.
On the map, it looked like there were a number of sights scattered through one big park. Once we got here, we discovered this was not the case at all, and it was pretty challenging to move between all of them on account of busy roads, waterways, and fencing.
We spent a lot of time and mileage just trying to figure out how to get to all of the places.
That’s the Santa Maria House and Lighthouse. Between here and there is an inlet that’s popular with swimmers and sunbathers on a day like this.
A bit further down the road is another picturesque spot.
Across the street is the Condes de Castro Guimarães Palace.
It took some doing, but we finally found the way to the playground in the middle of Parque Marechal Carmona. They do not make it easy.
This park was recommended by a friend of a friend with kids as a fun place to go in Cascais.
Riley’s birthday was just two days before we flew from Portland to Lisbon, so we knew we’d have to get a bit creative this year in terms of gifts. His gifts this year ended up being a dozen or so fun things to do in Lisbon—this park being one of them.
He was very excited to redeem his ticket and the park did not disappoint.
Riley was also very happy to get to sit on the side facing the water on the way back, mostly so he could get a good view of Lisbon’s famous sister bridge to the Golden Gate.
