31/3/09 Lisbon and Cascais

I got up around 9 and had my great pancake and toast breakfast again. I checked out and made my way down to the train station where I caught the train to Cascais (pronounced cash-kice). The tickets were 1.80 Euros each. Amazingly cheap.

The ride was nice. Since they’ve screwed up their waterfront big time, the train had great view the whole way there. The ride only took about a half-hour, all along the coast.

When I got in I didn’t have any real plans, so I walked to the nearest beach, which was about 30 feet away. I took my shoes and socks off and went in the water a little. It was cold, but could have been much worse. The temperate was in the upper 60s only, although very sunny. There were a surprising number of people out on the beach on a Tuesday afternoon, especially young people.

I walked through the town a little. It seemed like a pretty typical town, if not slightly overrun by touristy stuff. So I made my way back to the water and walked along the boardwalk. This was an awesome walk. The water was very blue, and they had small cafes along the way. It looked like the boardwalk was built within the last 15 years or so.

There were beach after beach. Also a number of large rocks that jutted out into the water. In all, it was exactly what I was hoping for in a beachside trip.

I walked from Cascais to the neighboring town of Estroil, which is, well, a lot like Cascais. I climbed up some stairs when the boardwalk ended and went through Estroil a little. Nothing special, and when I say that I mean really pretty, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I walked back on the boardwalk, stopping to get gelado. I had some sort of cookies and cream, strawberry, and something that looked really good but I had no idea what it was. Some chocolate/vanilla combo or something. And it was really cheap too. I took it down to the beach and ate it. I’d been wanting real ice cream for a while now, so this was perfect. Instead of a wooden spoon, it came with a plastic spoon like the wooden spoon, except like wooden spoon 2.0, it had a little curvature to it so it was easier to eat with. I still will always prefer the original.

I had about a half hour and I was already back at the train station area so I sat down in the sand on the beach for a while. I thought about bringing a towel, but I didn’t really want to carry it. But just sitting in my jeans was fine. I really liked just hanging out there.

I took the train back, getting off before the city center up by Belem. I had a hunch it would work, and it paid off beautifully. It was only about a 10 minute walk from this station to the Torre de Belem. Since I knew exactly where everything was from the day before, I was hoping to cram all the sites I couldn’t get into the day before into about a three-hour period.

For starters, it worked out better than I could have possibly imagined. Since I was a student, the Torre was free. It was pretty cool on the inside. The 16^th century architecture was still very much visible. In the basement they had prisons with the ceiling not more than 5 feet high or so. But the best part was going up. There were five floors where they had various uses in the past, although now empty. But you could look out the windows and get great views. On the second and firth floors were large outdoor areas that you could wander around. It was awesome.

I came down and walked over to the Maritime Museum. I had to pay to get in (all of 1.50 Euros) and it ended up being sort of a disappointment. The building was a part of the monastery somehow, and I read that the discoverers would pray there before departing. That was about the coolest part of the museum. They had a ton of model ships, lots of replicas of items, a few real da Gamma things, like his portable chapel, a relic box containing his rib (weird), a desk, and that was a bout it. There were some interesting maps (fakes) but there were some real compasses and other navigation tools from the 1500s.

There was a lot of room dedicated to later explorers, which I really just didn’t care about. They did have the royal cabins from the King and Queens yacht, which was interesting. Better than that was a huge room full of royal boats, the oldest from the 1700s. The biggest and oldest boat was used by Queen Elizabeth II when she came to Lisbon in the 1950s. Sorta cool. I didn’t stick around the museum for all that long.

Next up I went to the monastery. The church part of it is free admission. I’ve been to a ton of old European churches, but this was one of the best. The interior was very ornate with carvings all over. The ceiling was gothic vaults, and rather high as well. Also Vasco da Gamma’s tomb was there, so that was cool. Too bad Magellan had to go and die before he could make it back or else I figure he’d be there too. The kings and queens buried there had their tombs on top of small sculpted elephants because of the grandeur or them. I was incredibly happy I got to go in there, I don’t know if I’ve been in a monastery before or not.

I was leaving and I saw that there was more to the monastery, but you had to get tickets, which were 6 Euros. But since I was a student, it was free. We need to institute this in America, instead of raising prices for students (I’m looking at you Field Museum and Art Institute of Chicago). This took us through the cloister. I wouldn’t have paid the 6 Euros, but since it was free, I went for it. A good decision.

There was a really pretty courtyard with more of the ornate carvings all around, with arched windows. Very picturesque. I went into a couple of the rooms, some of which had what I assume are famous dudes buried in them, but I didn’t know who they were.

We go to also go up to the stalls of the church part, probably about 100 feet up in the air overlooking the rest of the church. This might have been the best part.

I wandered around the upper floor of the courtyard and then headed out. I’m really glad I did it.

I waited to catch the tram (which took a long time) and when I got on, the door I went to didn’t have a ticket machine thing. Since it was crowded, I just decided to chance it, since I’ve never had any of my tickets checked on European public transportation. It wasn’t this time either. The tram ride was probably about a half-four, longer than I expected. It also wasn’t one of the super cool old ones, but a newer one. Oh well.

The tram dropped me right off my the water where all the fish were, so I went back down for a minute. The fish were still there. I can’t figure it out.

I went up through town, stopping in the gift shops looking for something to get. I found a nice Torre de Belem figure thing, a little more than I wanted to pay, but I did it anyways. Then I went back to the hostel, got my stuff together and left.

The bus for the airport met right across the street, running every 20 minutes. Or so it claimed. It took about a half hour and I was getting sorta nervous, I didn’t have tons of time to spare. I’m guessing it was messed up by the random march that was going through the streets on the other side. I couldn’t figure out what it was for, at first I thought it was a KKK rally because all I saw was stark white, but it was the flags they were carrying. Who knows?

The bus ride was quick, and went through a part of town I didn’t but wished I had. Oh well.

I didn’t have any problems at the airport and went right to my gate. The plane was a little late in getting there, so we didn’t takeoff until about 20 minutes after we were supposed to, but it was fine. I had a seat in the second row on the window, my favorite. I wrote everything up to here sitting on the plane. I have about an hour left of the flight, not sure what I’ll do. I wrote the outlines for my next column on my phone, I’ll try to write it out now.