Cascais – turnrightoutofportsmouth

Another wonderful day out on our travels! We had been looking forward to Sintra having been advised to go there by a couple that we met in Alicante. We didn’t manage to see everything that they told us about, and were gutted to have missed the gardens – Quinta da Regaleira which looked absolutely amazing.

First things first – how to get there. We were staying in Guincho, near to Cascais. To get to Sintra we needed to get a bus to Cascais, 2 miles away, at a cost of 3.60 Euros each, one way, then a bus to Sintra, at least 10 miles from Cascais – I don’t know the cost but would guess it must be at least 10 Euros each, each way, and then the tourist bus (5.50 Euros each) or a tuk tuk (5 Euros each) up to the Pena Palace (a must see).

So quite expensive to go by bus then (remember that’s one way for one person shown above…) We took a taxi with another couple, Jenny and Graeme, on the site at a cost of 26 Euros all the way up to the Pena Palace and 18 Euros back from the centre of Sintra at the bottom of the hill (between 4 people). We also took a tuk tuk down the hill, but this was on our -to-do- list anyway so was a cost we were actively seeking!

So my point is even if there’s just 2 of you going it’s cheaper to take a taxi! We were talking to a taxi driver before we went back to the campsite who told us that taxis are much cheaper but they’re not allowed to advertise the fact – I can’t for the life of me think why that would be the case….

Anyway, back to Sintra itself. The absolute must do is The Pena Palace Continue reading “Sintra – a magical day (topped off with a ride in Tuk Tuk)”

As I said in my last post we were sad to leave this site after just the 1 night, but we had actually booked our next site, and with only 2 weeks to get back to Bilbao we feel under a bit of pressure now!

When we left we headed back to the town in order to follow the road to find the Historic fishing port, that we had seen signposted from the town centre. It turned out that Calv was right when he said he didn’t think we’d be able to walk it!

It was actually a good 3 to 4 miles along a back road (although there was a cycle path a good portion of the way). When we found it we parked outside what we think was a coastguard station. When we got out though we found out that the road did go to a parking area where there was also a restaurant (closed though).

We have no idea what the fishing port was called but it was absolutely charming. The harbour must be quite something to navigate into with the waves that we saw! Calv noticed that the fishing boats themselves had metal skids and he’s thinking that perhaps they haul them up onto the slipway – although he then noticed that they were all tied up so maybe the tide does come all the way up the slipway!

Homes in the Historic Fishing port

The Historic Fishing port near Zumbejeira

There were numerous cages of varying sizes, from which we deduced they were fishing for crab, langoustine, lobsters and perhaps even octopus!

In any event we were glad we made the detour. Not least because we saw a pair of nesting birds, Continue reading “Zumbejeira to Guincho, Cascais – Wednesday 15th March 2017”