Day 2: Planes, trains, and automobiles

Okay it was actually subway, train, bus, and taxi but that isn’t as cool for a title. 🙂

Today we decided to venture a bit out of the downtown to try to avoid some of the crowds from the cruise ship that was docking today. (Tomorrow there will be 2 including a Disney ship with 3500 so we are definitely taking off!) We decided to visit Cascais, a resorty town just west of Lisbon which supposedly has great cliffs with a great name: Boca do Inferno. We thought we’d try being real tourists for a change and get one of those hop on/off tickets and see if we could learn something along the way.

After a lovely breakfast ala Chef Frank (fried egg sandwiches and fresh squeezed OJ!), we walked the 2km to the departure point only to find out that the tour buses only run twice a day to that location: earlier in the AM or later in the PM to accommodate beach goers. Harrumph. That’s not what we would have wanted even if we had gotten there in time. So off we go to the Metro station to buy a Viva Viagem card which covers all public transport including trains to outlying areas for €10. So we took the blue line to the green line to the train station and caught an incredibly crowded train for the 30ish minutes to Cascais.

The scenery out the window to the coast was lovely and so was the town when we arrived. First stop was the cliffs. And they were lovely.

(Snarky aside: weather notwithstanding, we have nicer cliffs outside Aberdeen. Just saying….)

With that accomplished, it was time to begin the visit to the town. Starting with piña coladas in a pineapple. Nothing says Portugal like a piña colada, right? Then lunch at a sidewalk cafe where we *though* we were ordering paella but apparently we ordered Portugues seafood rice. It’s more of a soup than a paella but yummy none the less. A lovely bottle of vinho verde to go with it and we were ready to tackle the rest of the sights. Luckily it is a pretty small resort town so it didn’t take long. We stopped in the obligatory souvenier shops to pick up a token or two. By mid-afternoon it was much more crowded, very hot (29c or 84f) and time to head back to town.

Back to the train and then the metro to the main shopping district where people watching is outstanding! We experienced an all girls school musical performance (well worth the 2.50 donation!) and then had the BEST gelato I have ever had. The dark chocolate was AMAZING! But eventually it was time to head back to the apartment and get sorted for dinner. Now it was time for the bus – No 735 took us up all the hills to our lovely little flat.

We freshened up and got things sorted and then headed out to dinner. I had read about Bomjardin on several gluten free blogs and was really keen to try their piri piri chicken. We decided to walk there (all down hill!) and joined the short queue just before 8pm. The dinner did not dissapoint. The chicken was fantastic and Frank loved his grilled prawns (the fish theme continues!). By the time we left just about 9.30, there was a queue of at least a dozen people. Eating late is definitely a thing.

Now it was time to enjoy something we haven’t done is ages – wander a city at night. We found Avenida de Liberdad which is apparently Lisbon’s version of Rodeo drive. Another fun wander until the dogs were barking so we went to find a bus to take us home (up all the hills)…. and we missed it. And the service gets pretty scarce after 10pm on a Monday so after several other attempts, it was time to call an Uber. Which went to the wrong pick up spot because the app wasn’t quite sure where were were – and neither was I. So that was an epic fail that cost me a whole €4 for a cancellation fee. We were lucky to flag down a taxi and got home in good time.

Today’s data: