Despedida Portugal, Until Next Time…
Ola there my fellow adventurer!
I hope this photograph of the Portugal Riviera makes you want to jump on a plane and visit the beautiful country, get a tan and build a sand castle!
As promised, here is my ‘Despedida’ or Farewell post from Portugal!
Now don’t get me wrong fellow adventurer, while one of my favorite aspects of travel happens to be just spontaneously exploring, if you should take anything away from this post let it be that in my opinion, that in order to fully appreciate any country, one must seek to get out of their initial arrival destination and flock to the countryside or surrounding towns to get a full picture of what the country has to offer! I promise you, you will never regret exploring :)
With that being said, on Friday while my friend opted to stay back at the hotel and work on some of her Uni assignments, I embarked on a tour I booked the night before through TripAdvisor titled, ‘Small-Group Day Trip to Sintra and Cascais from Lisbon’, and let me tell you my fellow adventurer, it was SO worth it for 62.30 Euros!
The inclusions of my little adventurer entailed: an 8-hour trip to Sintra and Cascais from Lisbon, travel between dispersed highlights such as Sintra village and Cabo da Roca with ease, a visit to the UNESCO-listed Pena National Palace and the charming fishing village of Cascais, and round-trip transportation all for a small group tour limited to only eight people in total. WOW now if that sounds like a lot or exciting, let me tell you fellow traveler, that is just a BRIEF overview of what the tour should have included, however, my tour exceeded all of my expectations, as we saw so much more than was listed on the guide, I know I personally will never forget my Portugal adventure from sunrise to the day’s night!
Promptly at 9am, I was picked up from my hotel by my driver and tour guide for the day in a small air-conditioned van. Now since I booked the tour late the night before combined with the notion that I was visiting Portugal at 'off peak' time, I wasn't too sure how many people I should be expecting to see in my tour group (knowing that the max amount of people there could possibly be on the tour was 8). Well to my surprise, I climbed into the van after introducing myself to my tour guide (his name was Alexandre), only to find that aside from me, only a small family of three were going to be making up the group for the day, and to top it all off, since the family of three sat in the back of the car, Alexandre let me sit right up front with him next to the driver's seat, so the whole day I got a literal front row view of the beautiful scenery!
Before I go on to explain my tour any further, I just want to point out one little thing! If you have been following my travel blog, earlier on in one of my Edinburgh, Scotland posts, I mentioned that I am currently living in a university accommodation flat with three flatmmates, two of which are from Malaysia! Having never met anyone in my life before from Malaysia until I met my two flatmates, when I climbed into the van, ready to embark on my Portugal tour, I turned around from the front seat and introduced myself to the family in the back (a mom, dad and 27 year old daughter), all from GUESS WHERE.. Malaysia!!!! The parents said I should call them Mom and Dad for the day, and the daughter said her name was Amanda, all of whom adopted me, inviting me to spend our lunch break with them! Now after meeting so many people from Malaysia, perhaps a future adventure of mine will need to be to Asia... only time will tell :)
Okay, so back to my tour... after being pick up, our first stop of the day was the Palace of Queluz (see photo on the right)! Built in the 18th century for Portugal's royal family at the time, King Consort Dom Pedro of Braganzathen and his niece Queen Maria, merely as a summer retreat. Originally meant to be a summer retreat, let me tell you fellow adventurer, once inside the palace was STUNNING, I would take it any day as my permanent residence! Not to say it wasn't just as beautiful from the outside, but the inside was just breathtaking! In one of the photos of me, while it may look like I am at the Palace of Versailles in France, I am actually in the Palace of Queluz, but the reason why it looks so similar is because the Queen of Portugal at the time, Queen Maria was sent away to France during her youth to study interior design, music and art, so therefore, when she had the palace built, she had every room touched with a certain je ne sais quoi!
After leaving the Palace of Queluz, we hopped back into our little tour van and headed off to the beach in the city of Cascais! Also known as the little French Riviera (where the banner photo of this post was taken), we stopped for about 30 minutes to walk around, take some photos (get a quick tan) and take in all the smells of the fishermen boats along the docks! I believe it is time for a fun fact now: did you know that Portugal is known for their Cod fish! Just as how Scotland is known for having amazing 'Scottish Salmon', Portugal is known for their Cod, and without a doubt they love it because no matter where you go, you can be sure to find it on the menu !
Now before I forget to mention, on the way to Cascais, just right before we stopped off in front of the beach, our tour guide took us to visit (the outside) of a casino named Casino Estoril! Alright my James Bond lovers, does the name of that casino sound familiar... no, if not, no worries, as a James Bond fan myself, I had NO idea why this casino was so famous until my guide explained the 007 connection...
Released on November 17th, 2006, the first movie of Daniel Craigs' James Bond trilogy 'Casino Royale', came out, with the setting taking place in a Montenegro casino, located in the Balkans. However, while the movie may take place in Montenegro, the exterior scenes of the casino were shot in Monaco, BUT the interior scenes of the casino were shot using Portugal's, Casino Estoril!!!!!
Now I only wish my fellow adventurer that I could show you a photograph of the inside of the casino, however unfortunately I was not allowed to take photos of the interior while I was there, but I did manage to play a quick slot machine (not winning anything sadly) but at least I can say I gambled inside Casino Royale!
Moving on from Casino Estoril, finally we stopped at the Cascais beach! As you can see from the photo that lines the heading of this post, the beaches of Cascais have been famously recognized as the second coming of the French Riviera, both popular tourist destinations during the summer months due to their beauty and access to the country's cultural surroundings! To say the least, as much as I LOVED visiting the beaches, don't expect to see me at one during the summer months anytime soon, for our tour guide said as much that SO many people come from all over the world to rent houses, tan and explore, that you can't even see the sand because it's just covered with people and flip flops galore!
After about 30 minutes or so, my Malaysian family and I re-embarked on our tour van to head off to the end of the world!
'WHAT!? The End of the World! Meghan you do know the world is round, right?!'
Haha, yes adventurer, I do know the world is round, but back during the early centuries of existence, people used to think that the world was flat and that if you traveled far enough west, you would fall straight off the face of the planet! Which lead me right into the introduction of the next stop on my tour, the walking cliffs at the end of the world in Sagres, Portugal! Factually considered to be the south-western most point and tip of continental Europe, as you can see from my photo off to the right, people believed that if you sailed all the way to the edge of the horizon, the part where the sky meets the ocean, then you would just simply fall right off into space or be eaten by a swamp of sea monsters, luckily two theories that have since been disproven!
Following my trip to the end of the world and back, our tour guide brought us to one of his favorite restaurants for the day, Name Here, on the way to our final destination the UNESCO-listed Pena National Palace. Now before I move onto describing the final part of my day trip, I just want to mention that should you ever find yourself in Portugal my fellow adventurer and are in need of a place to eat, this restaurant was fabulous! So if you are looking for some good quality, reasonably priced, authentic Portuguese food, off to the side you can see the outside of the restaurant, just in case you are driving by, your eye will know what to look for!
With a full belly and some adventure in my soul, my adoptive family and I climbed back into our tour van with our sights set on the Pena National Palace, which fun fact, we were told was once visited by Walt Disney (and may or may not have influenced some of his castle making decisions for his fairly tale creations).
Okay now I promise, before I tell you about Pena Palace, I just need to make one more little detour...
While on the way to Pena Palace, Alexandre, our guide, stopped the van in the middle of this lush green forest road we were on, turned to me and said, 'are you a risk taker, Meghan'? Now I know what you're probably thinking, 'Meghan, this story sounds a bit sketchy'.... but haha not to worry my freind, this story is totally worth it! After Alexandre asked me if I was a risk taker, I said 'it depends', which I guess he took as a 'yes', because next thing I knew he asked me and my adoptive family to get out of the car, hand him my camera and go hug a tree (one he was pointing at) just located right off to the side of the road. Now of course I asked what was going to happen when I hugged the tree because I have to admit, I was a little bit.... weirded out, but nevertheless I did as he suggested, and as you can see from the photo above of me hugging the tree, as soon as I felt the tree trunk, I couldn't help but smile because this wasn't just any type of tree...!
Low and behold, it's time for your final fun fact of this post my fellow adventurer, the tree I can be seen hugging is not just any old tree, but its a Cork Tree! Yes, that's right, I said Cork Tree, Cork as in the type of material that is used to top a wine bottle or fill the interior of birkenstock shoes! Apparently Portugal is known for their production of cork products because they have one of the largest cork tree populations in the world! So next time you open a bottle of wine just think, you could be touching a piece of cork that came from the tree I am hugging!
Continuing our pursuit to Pena Palace after hugging some cork trees, our van continued up the windy road to the palace entrance (well almost the entrance because pedestrian cars can only go so far, you have to walk or take a bus to the actual top of the palace gates). Considering the fact that construction on the palace started in 1836 (and finished less than twenty years later in 1854), I was pleasantly surprised to see how well intact the palace had been kept up over the years, from the vibrant castle paint to the furniture preserved inside, everything about this palace just screamed 'magic' to me in a way that the Palace of Queluz didn't. Now I wouldn't necessarily say it is fair to compare the two palaces as the Palace of Queluz had a very French-esque air to it, while Pena Palace had a totally different vibe, one that made its decor unique to Portugal, for I have never seen anything else I could possibly similarly compare it to in the world! For this was truly the perfect place to end my little day trip!
Like the saying goes, 'all good things must come to an end', so after spending almost 2 hours at the miraculous Pena Palace, my adoptive family and re-embarked our tour van for the last time and headed back off to Lisbon. Finally arriving back at my hotel at 6:00pm, I was the first stop back, as my Malaysian family was to be dropped off second, so as I said my final goodbyes to them and wished them fun during the rest of their Portuguese journey, I happily thanked my tour guide as well for an amazing, expectation exceeding day, and happily danced inside the hotel lobby, knowing I was going to sleep good that night, playing over and over in my head, the sweet magical memories I had made throughout the day!
Wrapping up my evening, my friend and I gathered back together for dinner that evening, talked about our plans for our final day in Portugal (the next day) and then went to bed early because we were both tired from exploring and studying!
Now don't worry my fellow adventurer, I am almost done sharing my journey! I just have so much to say about Portugal, for if I haven't mentioned it already, I loved the country and hope someday you get to experience it!
On my final day in the city of Lisbon, my friend and I decided to visit the Lisbon 'Time Out Market', where I tired my very first Portuguese Custard Tart, shopped around, bought a cork postcard (because like I said, cork is the unofficial national trade of Portugal), and then spent the rest of the afternoon just froleking around the city, taking more photos and soaking in the warm sun because I knew back in Scotland it would be a bit chilly!
To sum up my entire Portuguese trip in one phrase it would have to be, unexpectedly breathtakingly amazing! I can't stress to you enough my fellow adventurer that I just fell in love with the scenery, culture, food and yes of course the weather the second I arrive in the city! So to close this post, if you should take anything away from my words let it be this, next time you plan a trip to Europe, consider visiting Portugal because I promise you, the journey is worth it!
Until Next Time...
Cheers,
Meghan Chayka
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