tugal

night's sleep in the anchorage, bay of Cascais, it was time to look around the
very touristy town of Cascais. To our surprise there was, amongst the 10
anchored yachts, an Aussie flag. Simon, on board Woolloomooloo had been in the
area for some months chartering so he knew all about the place, most helpful.
The town was steeped in history both due to its fishing heritage and having
been one of the summer playgrounds for Portuguese royalty and aristocracy over
the centuries. Now however it was obviously local tourist Mecca with sand
beaches and streets packed with holiday makers especially as we were at the
height of the summer season. While there were thousands of people swimming at
beaches we were not so keen with water temperature a chilly 18C and equally
chilly, almost continuous chilly North wind. OK when you are out of the wind
and in the sun but as soon as the sun set the temperature dropped rapidly
requiring jumper and trousers at night, not quite our idea of summer!  A must was to try the local cuisine at a
restaurant frequented by locals as recommended by Simon. Char grilled Sardines
washed down with local beer were just wonderful.

With a large well stocked
supermarket nearby we took the opportunity to restock, I looked after beverages
while Sasha looked after the rest, fair deal I thought.

Next a look
around a little further afield. Lisbon was a short 30 minute train ride and has
all sorts of historical and cultural sights, cathedrals, museums, art galleries

etc, we saw our fair share. 

One real stand out thing was the roads and
footpaths.

As was the case in the Azores, most of the city roads were cobble
stone while the footpaths were patterned stone in cream and dark grey. Another
"must see" place is the area of Sintra where there are several
castles and fortifications spanning some 1000 years.

There were three in
particular that we wanted to see so with packed lunch and requisite beverages
we caught the bus to begin our one day, three castles track. Each was, in some
way, perched on or protected a hill of strategic location or beauty so there
was a good deal of up and down as we walked from one to another. By 6pm as we
exited the last one we were pretty well spent with just enough time to have a
beer in the tourist quarter of town before petting back to the bus. One of the
castles in particular, ????????, had wonderful surrounding parklands, a visit
to just that one would, in hind sight, have been a good full days outing.

Back on Ednbal,
all "cultured out", again overlooking the beaches of Cascais  packed with holiday makers, we planned our
approach to finding a suitable marina for Ednbal and Sasha while I went to Oz
for 2 weeks. Naturally price was important but so were facilities, particularly
internet wifi to save Sasha's sanity. None of the 5 marinas in the Lisbon area
had wifi available to vessels. Only the most expensive, Cascais, had wifi at
all and then it apparently worked "sometimes". We decided to start
heading south. First port, Sesimbra, largely a fishing boat harbour but with a
yacht club and reportedly good marina facilities. First night we spent
anchored, no other cruising yachts and completely open to the South so a little
rolling. We had spoken briefly to one of the office guys who had suggested we
come back the next day to speak to someone more senior as we wanted to stay 2
weeks and their policy was for a maximum of 1 week for non members. Next day
back at the office we were told we could stay but  only in a larger pen costing almost twice as
much. It seemed someone wanted to take advantage of us so, after spending the
second night tied up to the fishing boat wharf, allowing for the 3 metre tide,
due to forecast Southerly winds, we set out for Sines an easy day sail South.