Portugal’s food, music, heritage and culture are
fascinating, making it a must see for more than the just the lovely beaches of
the Algarve. Portugal is home to the most westerly point in Europe, many
ancient buildings, fortresses and of course, golf courses, if that's your persuasion!
Our visit had to tick a lot of boxes, as we wanted beach
time, a short hop into Lisbon, to see some of the many world heritage sites
that Portugal boasts in places like Sintra and generally have a nice time
eating and drinking our way around, as you do on holiday!
This led us to choose a hotel in the small coastal town of
Estoril, which has a train station and direct rail to Lisbon, beaches and a
short walk to a bit more life in a bigger town further down the coast.
Estoril itself, we found, doesn’t have a lot to boast about
other than an enormous casino which was interestingly the inspiration behind
James Bond Casino Royale, as the author visited Portugal and learned of the popularity of the
town for spies and agents, due to Portugal’s neutral position in the world
wars. We just had to order two martinis shaken not stirred! We were told
that on a weekend locals would gather for beach parties, fires and merriment,
so there were a few nightclubs around but we tended to prefer bars and instead
watched the young locals getting well oiled.
The beaches are small but satisfactory and largely man made
here but suited our purposes for lounging and catching rays, however the walk
to the beach was sometimes too much so we made use of the pool at our hotel.
On an evening, a 20-30 minute walk along the gorgeous
promenade took us into Cascais, which was a bigger and slightly more lively destination
than Estoril. We loved our evening walks taking in the scenery and watching the
roaring waves strike the sea walls repeatedly but doing this there and back may
have been out of some people’s reach. Luckily there is a train station with
regular trains running between the two and taxis are affordable.
Once in Cascais we found a great selection of restaurants, a
few bars, shops, markets and some lovely surprisingly quirky offerings. Being a vegetarian I’m always pleased to find
decent offerings and we stumbled upon a charming place called House of Wonders,
which offered a hearty but vegan menu, amazing cocktails and had the most
stunning roof terrace to watch the world go by. They also made and sold crafts.
We also found a fantastic tapas place which had strong cocktails
in jam jars and a local delicacy, flaming spicy sausage, which my other half
was delighted with and made quite the spectacle on the table. Many other diners
commented and then ordered the same thing.
Another highlight was a gorgeous Indian restaurant which is
a trip advisor favourite and got our custom a few times during our visit.
During our time there a few festivals took place, with
beautiful red Chinese lanterns strewn across buildings and balloon puppets
floating across the sky. Locals and tourists mingled together to enjoy the
festivities, which made for a very authentic taste of Portugal. Some destinations
can feel very touristy and leave little of the original culture behind but I
felt Cascais managed a happy compromise.
Lisbon and Sintra deserve blog posts of their own as
there were so many amazing bits, so until then….TTFN
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