Kathleen
5/31/2013 – Caiscais, Sintra, Westernomost Europe and Obidos
Although sad to leave Lisbon so soon, we were excited to continue on our Portugal adventure. One thing we dicovered right off is that Portugal has some fantastic roads. They did a public works project some years back and built some amazing highways with beautiful views and a lot of breathtaking bridges. The main highways are toll roads and you can drop a pretty penny on them, but it somehow feels worth it to be on those multilane, limited entry, divided highways on which you can actually move at speeds that get you from A to B without taking an entire day.
Although our schedule out of Lisbon was pretty tight (not spending more than one night in any place for over a week), the distances were short and the roads were good so it has not seemed as harried as we might have thought.
No highways day one out of Lisbon, in fact, we took the Atlantic coastal road most of the way on the first day. We headed out to Caiscais, which is maybe a 45-minute drive to where fashionable Lisboans have their week-end cottages or go to spend a week-end when the weather is nice. We were pretty much just driving through to take a look but it seems that Caiscais lacks for nothing in a little, upscale, resort town, complete with a castle and a seaside promenade. The beach had nothing on Essaoira, looking rather small after the great expansive beach in Marocco, but I reminded myself that Europeans generally have to go abroad for the kind of expansive, sandy beaches we have in Florida and all in all, I could see myself spending a couple of days here if we had had more time in Lisbon to begin with.
From Caiscais, we drove through Sintra (not too much further), which is a hillside town that wealthy Lisboans used to frequent back in the old days when the heat got unbearable in the city in the summer. I had just finished reading a Portuguese classic set in the late 1700’s in which frequent trips were made there and the author went on and on about these fantastic cheese pastries they made there. I didn’t see much sign of the jet set or the pastries as we were passing through, but again, it looked like it had the potential to be a lovey place to while away a couple of days.
Still heading North, we took a turn where a sign told us we could find the Westernmost point in continental Europe a few miles off the main road and found a loveley cliffside spot with an unpretentious monument and a very pretty view. Crossed that off the list, and drove to our destination for that night, which was Obidos. Obidos is a lovely little walled, castled town which can be seen in about an hour. We walked the cobbled streets, took a few pictures from the top of the old wall, thoroughly enjoyed the experience and turned in, tired but happy, for the night.
One of the fascinating things about Portugal is attempting to decipher the store hours. Generally, things seem to be open from 9:30-11:30, then again from 3-6. However, hours are highly dependent the mood of the owner, and we witnessed many a begrudged native finding their favorite grocery, cafe or ubiquitous seller of the rather sad Super Bock beer unexpectedly closed. These hours do not apply to anyplace where you might procure food, which runs on an opposite, albeit abridged timetable. Lunch runs on a very strict schedule of 12:30-1:30, and I have had many a conversation at 1:35 such as- Me: Food? (in Spanish), Lunch? (in French). Them: (confusion). Me: (universal motion of placing food in one’s tilted back head). Them: (happy comprehension). Me: Now? (in Span-ugese) Them: (very sad, matronly shaking of heads, as if I just asked to see the last remaining Dodo and they have some very bad news for me). So we go next store to a place which has (I’m not kidding) Restau-Bar Café Snack all in the name of the establishment. However, the only edible thing in view seems to be what appears to be a half dozen quails eggs floating in a jar of Mountain Dew. Upon further inquiry, we’re informed we can have coffee, beer or any one of thirty odd, prepackaged icecream sandwich concoctions. While I’m momentarily excited by the prospect of “sandwich” anything, we decided to just return to the hotel and eat the complimentary trail mix.