Cascais, Portugal

Not much fun

After five days in Nazaré the forecast was favourable so we departed for Sines but ending up diverting into Cascais which is at the entrance to Lisbon. The trip from Nazaré was fairly rough, with large swells, breaking waves and rain. While we had good wind and speed for 80% of the trip the last 3hrs we had to turn the engine on, by this stage we were wet and getting cold so decided to stop at Cascais rather than spend another 10hrs in the elements to reach Sines. By this stage the 'fun factor' was low so a night at anchor was very attractive. 

This passage was our shortest so far - a mere 70NM and only 9 hours before we put the anchor down. While motoring in we saw a rainbow but felt cheated as there was no pot of gold at the end of it! 

View at anchor

After the night at anchor, we then moved into the Cascais marina. We knew we are getting closer to the Med when we motored past some super yachts and a helo pad in the marina. Cascais is a picturesque seaside resort town, with a beautiful waterfront and a short walk from the marina to the local shops. 

Pena National Palace

The highlight of this stopover was visiting Sintra which was a magical and historic place.  Sintra is a World Heritage Site with Lord Bryon famously calling this hilltop town a 'glorious Eden' and is absolutely amazing. Sintra was the traditional summer retreat of Portugal's kings and is a fairy-tale setting of stunning palaces and manors. We certainly did not expect to see a Moorish Castle built in 5,000 BC, Palaces for Royalty which look like something from Disney Land with the colours and turrets built on top of the stone cliffs and a virtual plethora of other palaces built for the aristocrats of the day.  It was absolutely stunning scenery with great views from the castle's across to Lisbon. We also stopped at the Cabo da Roca lighthouse en-route to Sintra which is the western most point for main land Europe.  

We considered staying in Cascais for a month as the marina is comfortable with a massive concrete break wall which does a good job of stopping the Atlantic surge and is a good location to the town with miles of scenic paths along the coastline to walk. Our only concern was we may get stuck here for all of winter so have decided to keep going south to Gibraltar where we can stop and rest for awhile.  With only 250NM to go now we are getting close, but it seems to be taking a long time to cover this final distance.  With the limited weather windows at least we are getting a chance to explore a few other ports on the way.  

Below are some photos from around the local area.  We really liked  the pavements made of cobblestone - quite a change from miles of concrete and asphalt at home. 

Moorish Castle - 5,000 BC

One of many local Sintra Palaces

The Pena Palace has the largest collection of stained glass windows in Portugal.  The colours were vivid and bold depicting the stories from the ages - below is an example of a couple of stained glass artwork from the 16th century.