Aug. 2018 Cascais – Guincho – Cabo da Roca

A multi-pronged Aug-Sep 2018 trip to Boston to visit Allie, then to Lisbon via Dublin to spend time in Portugal with Laurie, culminating in a return to Boston to meet Barb for a long weekend.

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Thursday, Aug. 30: Cascais – Guincho – Cabo da Roca

Once I finally woke up, Laurie (who’d been up for hours, evidently) fixed us some nice toast with tomato for breakfast.  Our plan was to catch the Hop-on Hop-off bus for a ride out to Guincho and Cabo da Roca. We hustled down the hill to catch the 11am bus, arriving at the train station just at 11 but the bus had already departed. The saleslady at the station suggested we catch the next bus in an hour and explained that for Eu5 more we could use the tickets tomorrow for our trip to Sintra. That’s what we did, and killed an hour by clarifying the travel times for tomorrow, getting my sunglasses fixed (lost a nose piece) and wandering the town a little which window shopping.  The bus was an open-roofed minibus (with wifi!) with a couple of seats in the shade where we sat. We rode out along the very pretty coast and got off at Guincho beach where it was our plan to get lunch.

The coastline around the beach was very rugged and windy, like 20-30 mph, I guessed.  Guincho is famous for wind surfing, para surfing and regular surfing. It also has a bunch of restaurants strung along the coast. There’s a very famous, expensive one, the Fortaleza do Guincho, that we figured was out of our price range. I’d identified another one (O Faroleiro) but once we were there we had a hard time finding it and the wind made it unpleasant to wander around much. So we chose the place next to the expensive hotel, the Mar do Guincho.  It had a nice view over the beach adjacent to the main Guincho beach which turned out to be much less busy though still quite pretty.  We got a window table with a nice view of the waves, and ordered another grilled prawn and a grilled sole (lenguado). I also had the little octopus salad they offered with the table because it had a lot of onion and cilantro and looked tasty. It was. The prawn was also nice and came with some perfectly grilled potatoes.  Laurie and I shared that and then the sole, which the waiter expertly deboned tableside. Overall the meal was quite nice and we had a fine time watching the waves and a very intrepid windsurfer. When the bill came, the total was over Eu90, easily the most expensive meal we had on the trip. If we’d really known it would come to that, we might have splurged just a bit more and gone to the Michelin starred restaurant next door.

After lunch we caught the bus and headed to the end of the line, Cabo da Roca.  This is the official westernmost point in Portugal and Europe (sorry, Finisterre), with a lighthouse and great view from a promontory about 1000 feet above the Atlantic. The wind was fierce and chilly and the views, while impressive, were limited.  

I scrambled around for about 30 minutes, getting a little deja vu for Shek O golf club in Hong Kong and the Monterey peninsula in California at the same time. I’m still a sucker for lighthouses and views of an ocean and wild coastline, but the breeze made it tough to enjoy for long. 

After a little wait in the cafe and gift shop, we hopped back on our minibus and rode to Boca do Inferno, near Cascais.  We’d been warned by guidebooks that there wasn’t much to see there if the surf was calm, and sure enough, once we rounded the headland near Guincho, the wind and seas died down considerably.  The Boca is a cave where the waves can make great sounds, but on this quiet afternoon there was only a gurgle and a lot of tourists. We spent a few minutes there before repairing to one of the cafes near the road for a cold beer. We walked the kilometer or so back to Cascais then hunted out a place to watch the sunset.  

We wandered the beach promenade for another kilometer or so in the direction of Estoril before settling on a bar/cafe along the promenade, the Azimut. I asked for a gin and tonic was sold to “upgrade” to a Bombay G&T. Out came a fruity version, sort of a G&T sangria. It wasn’t an improvement. We stayed for a light dinner, prawns in garlic oil for me, fried shrimp for Laurie. Both were ok at best. The cafe is actually well-rated but I wouldn’t have given it high marks. But the view of the bay was nice and we enjoyed watching the lights come on. Once it was dark, we got a taxi back to the apartment and settled in for the night.


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