Grand Real Villa Italia Cascais

... with my favorite little airy cinnamon sugar dusted cream-puff type pastry (although it has no filling). How will I ever manage again without these delightful little airy morsels starting my day when we get back to Denver?? With that tucked away along with another coffee with hot milk, we got on the last line of the Metro for the river-front.

What a beautiful part of the city. This last Metro line is new and the surrounding ...

... rich, but he basically had a private park, which houses a chapel, towers, a waterfall, and other random monuments some of which are connected by underground tunels, for a yard. We had a great time there, it was like a big playground! The second half of the day we spent hiking up to and in an old Moorish castle. The view was good, but would have been amazing if it hadn't been foggy!!

We spent most of the last day in a museum. It ...

A pleasant day presented the opportunity to visit the nearby coastal town of Cascais. The town is a 30 minute ride away on the Lisbon local light rail system. Cascais is a small tourist town with a calm, seaside demeanor. In the off-season it is quiet and ...

... they were all singing. It turned out to be two people I barely know and two that I'd never met, which made it even weirder, plus Lucía and one other girl I kind of know hiding in the back. I guess I made a few new friends, if nothing else. It actually really made my day; the fact that four strange and slightly drunk people came in in the middle of the night and woke me up just to tell me Happy Birthday just made me feel really special. Then they all wanted me to come out to a club with ...

... or something. She quickly left after a few basic quenstions, telling us to wait a moment. After a few minutes, the second interview took place, made by a more corpulent woman, probably called by the first one, which spoke less fluently and acted somewhat more bossy (still nice though). This one asked me about my 44-day-long visa, then took both my passports after my explanation. The third interview was by a tall, very thin guy, with very big glasses, the typical chinese cliché you ...

... haven is de duurste van Portugal volgens de pilot, daarom besluiten we voor anker te gaan. Er staat veel wind die nu uit de bergen komt en ook noord is. De weersverwachting is de komende dagen ook Noord, dus het zou moeten kunnen, het anker houdt goed. Morgen willen we meteen doorvaren naar Lissabon, om onder de brug door te varen en een haven te zoeken. Maar dan moeten we goed rekening houden met het getij, met opkomend water moeten we de Taag op en dat is van af 10.00 uur. Ondanks de ...

... the other side of the river in the restaurants. On the way back to Cascais stopped in at a surfing town (though no surf for poor Jorgey the whole 2 weeks I was there!), and had a bit of dare to get wet in the freezing ocean after of course...a MAMMOTH gelato (where would we be without our daily dose of sugar and fat!). Felt soooo good to be in the water despite how ...

... the next 10 days we made many friends and developed a first name relationship with the barman. I wandered each evening, seeking the light as it bounced around the splendid colonial architecture. On the other side of town there was an old whaling station in a sheltered bay called Porto Pim an older part of the town with a beach bathed in light and city walls bracing against the sea while. We hired a car and drove around the island one foggy day. We had come to the conclusion that ...

At 7AM they flight attendants wake us up to serve breakfast. As we look out the window we can see the coast of Portugal in the distance. The sun is just coming up and the lights on the ground are still on. It is a beautiful sight. The TV monitors on the plane keep track of our trip with ...