Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

This building is on a jetty which is the closest point to America from Portugal.

For you who have asked, the luggage arrived. Four people on this tour did not receive their luggage for several days.  I heard once upon a time, that you could tell the quality of a person’s character by the way they handle LOST luggage.

This new lovely hotel does not have any soap. You heard that right! This is such a marvelous, well-rated hotel that they are filming a movie in the lobby with Nick Nolte and other stars from America. They have had trouble with their suppliers and have given us all four bottles of SHAMPOO and asked that we use that as soap. They did not even apologize and acted rather annoyed that we asked.  I’ll betcha Nick has soap; I mean real soap in addition to his shampoo and conditioner. Another guest in our party had poop left in the toilet and the supervisor, after flushing it said, “ All is clean now.” She neglected the other issues with the bathroom area.  Oh dear.  Yes, this is a well-established hotel with movie stars as well as tourists. It is not that bad and not that good.

We drove up the Estoril Coast to get to the town of Estoril where we did not stop, but went on to Cascias a beautiful Fishing village and a place where people come to vacation. We had Portuguese food for lunch and let me tell you it was highway robbery all the way, or let me restate this for clarification; it was a tipper rip off. But the end result was that we tasted Portuguese food for two out of the three nights and I will have to get my rocks off for the rip off and say what nasty food we had. I know there is better food in Portugal; it is just that we did not run into any, yet.  Thank goodness for the bakeries. A little hit and miss, but a good variety and for the most part very tasty.

The visit, the scenery, the resort experience and the photo ops in Cascias were enjoyed; tipper, ripper and all.

Another Beach scene in Cascias.

Fishing Traps photo below

Sintra

Sintra is a lovely little city up in a thickly wooded mountain area about an hour from Lisbon. Skip and I were there about 15 years ago. It is still beautiful and wonderful, but it certainly has grown up.  There were so many tourists visiting. Many, many tourists explain so many curio shops carrying many souvenirs mostly made in China. I was surprised on that one, but according to our lovely guide, unless she tells you what is especially native to the area, then it is not authentic. Be aware that many, many of the trinkets we bring back from our visits to other countries are made in China. That is all I will say on this subject.

Royal Palace in Sintra with elongated chimneys.

We visited the Royal Summer Palace with its elongated chimneys and through the upper window, I found Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.  I found it once before when we visited Sintra, but thought it was just a figment. This time I know it is true. It is exactly how I thought it would look; what do you think?

Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Sintra, Portugal, for real!