Day 3- Cabo da Roca

Day 3 started with same lazy coffee & croissant, when I could catch up on social media, charge my phone and have a little 'me time' when C was still asleep. We definitely have different body clocks, he's a typical 'owl' (I'm just a sloth), but we learnt to live together and adjust accordingly 😉

After a breakfast consisting of hot dogs with cold sausage (our campsite was really nice and I'm going to write a bit more about it but the restaurant there was not their finest part) we went to Cabo da Roca. With limited internet we thought the route would be quite difficult, but except 2 quite obvious turns it was straight away, along the main road. The walk was about 3 hours with a break for a drink in Malveira da Serra (nicest lemonade EVER! 🍋)

The walk was definitely quite a satisfying achievement however there were few things we didn't quite expected. Firstly, the road- despite the area being a national park, there were not official trails directly to Cabo da Roca. Supposing lt we could have taken slightly more picturesque walk down the coast, but it did not connect as one route so it would take a long time to get to the point. Instead, we walked a (luckily) not-so -busy road with very limited sidewalk and even more limited views. Secondly, despite the coast and our campsite being quite windy (one would could even call it 'cold'), the route we chosen was more mainland, and hence roasting hot ☀️🔥. Who would have thought? 😅 That leads me to the final point- 3 hours is relatively short time, particularly if you slowly strolling around time, shopping, reading a book or doing any other pleasurable activity... Walking in full sun is not one of them😂

Nonetheless, the effort was entirely worth it- we reached the furthest western part of continental Europe! 😃 And the view of the lighthouse, cliffs and the ocean was absolutely breathtaking! 

After a quick snack in local overpriced restaurant, we caught the bus to Cascais, walked around and had a dinner, and ended up another beautiful day in sunny Portugal☀️

Day 2- beach, dunes and Cascais

So I'm starting today the same way as yesterday, coffee & croissant, trying to catch a bit wifi and energy to charge my phone. C is still asleep... I quite like my morning routine:)

Yesterday we went to the beach. The camping site is directly by the sea (the back of it) but the entrance is in the front, which means that we have to all around in order to get to the beach. It was quite windy which almost made us feel cold!😨Still wearing summer clothes tho;) 

We stopped by the closest restaurant and an eductaional centre, something to do with dunes. Although food did not blow us away, the views and the interior design were quite impressive.

The beach was almost empty, I assume due to heavy wind, blowing sand on us- cold and painful! Nonetheless I'm super happy to smell the sea, dip my legs in it (it was too cold for anything else) and we ended up finding sand grains EVERYWHERE😂

Then a quick dip in a camping swimming pool, nicest shower ever and off we went to Cascais! (By taxi)

Cascais is a town to which we got from Lisbon by train the day before, but we didn't really have a chance to walk around. It's truly lovely- sort of sea resort with interesting stone architecture, squares with loads of restaurants and touristy shops and...tourists:) I really like the vibe of those towns, you can find them in Spain, Italy, as it happens, Portugal too. Not many photos, because the phone kept dying😥, but I managed to charge it in a Buerguessa, place we had dinner at (burgers, surprisingly😉). 

And then we just wondered around inhaling local atmosphere, getting a bit lost and grabbing a pint in Irish pub (can take Irishman out of Ireland but can't take Ireland out of him😉)🍀🍻

Day 1

I started writing yesterday but my battery died twice on me! Now I'm in a camping site's 'community room' where there are plugs and wifi feeding my body and my phone (cappuccino for €0.90!) 

Now about yesterday: the flight was usual- little leg room, crying babies; we also were almost late for it and they called C' name out on the speakers, how embarrassing! 😅 Upon arrival we had to wait almost an hour for a luggage to arrive so everything was 'out of schedule' (not that we had a schedule planned to the minute....). From the airport we took the metro to the station Oriente; I knew you could leave suitcases there in a nearby train station and the plan was to go to Oceanario Lisboa- one of the world's best oceanworld, which was just walk away.

The metro and train station are connected so the trains are on the upper floor. It was fun to get there with 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks and a little hand bag😂 and when we eventually get there, we learned that the locker room is actually downstairs, just behind the entrance to the metro station! We spend a while trying to find our way around as it wasn't well marked and not many locals knew where it is, but with help of a policeman we made it 😄 Suitcases in, 2 lockers taken, cause we had so much stuff, we decided to go and eat in opposite Vasco Da Gama shopping center. We had pizza in a lovely Pasta Cafe.

After quick wonder around shopping centre, off we went to find Oceanarium.

It was amazing! I really like nature and animals, despite fish not being my favourite pick🐠. But everything was nicely laid out, easy to take photos, not overcrowded and definitely educational! There was a big tank in the middle ('a big ocean') that you could see from different angles and sides, it had a wonderful variety of animals in there. There were also 'smaller oceans' representing particular ecosystems, including puffins, penguins and otters; as well as small tanks with selected, interesting species (jellyfish, octopus, crabs). There were also some educational corners for kids, but we skipped those...I try not to overwhelm you with the photos, so I'll post only few... But definitely recommend it! C enjoyed it as well despite being very tired and the fact that he only went there because I really wanted to see this place.  

After that we grabbed some icecream, 2 metros and 1 train (despite multiple changes, everything was quite close to each other and easy to find), we arrived to Cascais, a lovely town 40 minutes away from Lisbon. From there a taxi took us to our campsite, Guincho. We set a tent and went for a stroll to find food. I'll write some more about campsites later... And that's how we ended this extreme tiring but exciting day!