July 14. Cascais and Estoril

This morning we took a commuter train from Cais be Sobre into Cascais  and Estoril. Another seat of Portuguese royalty. They’ve picked a lovely place on the Atlantic Ocean beach. Cascais has a maze of pedestrian streets. It is beautiful, clean, and well maintained but not in a kind of a tired manicured way. There is vending machine to sell barrier devices on the street. You can see undergarments drying in the apartment upstairs and restaurant downstairs (we did not go to that restaurant).

We spent some time on the time on the beach. Water is ice cold. Kids made some friends. There was a mom with two kids their age. She is Ecuadorian who grew up in Portugal, went to college in Italy and married a Canadian. She speaks fluent Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and English. And her older kid speaks three out these already.

For lunch we went to Bangkok Thai restaurant. A different combination of flavors. Awesomely good. We could not drag ourselves away. Russian family having lunch next to us ordered second helping of the soup. 

Then Isabella went to sleep and we walked past citadel to the city park. They have several playgrounds there and lots of shaded walkways. And pond with turtles. We watched bunball in the water: turtles pushed around bread bun that someone threw in the water. Looked really funny. Georgia fed doves, chickens, and ducks.

Then the park guard told us not to feed them. With a half a dozen of other people feeding birds when we arrived, I suppose the birds already had their fill. Then we walked around some more. Visited the beautiful O’Neill palace and climbed to the roof to watch the views, visited St. Marta lighthouse, the most interesting museum mostly outdoors in a stunning white boxy design. Unfortunately lighthouse is accessible only between 11am and 12 noon.

Then Isabella woke up and we went down the boardwalk towards Estoril. There are lots of restaurants and bathrooms along the way. There was also a large shallow cement pool  filled with seawater and sand for kids to play in. The water was warmer than ice-cold. Kids splashed around and then we went on. Estoril two stops away from Cascais. We were afraid that we won’t be able to get into the train if everyone decides get on the train in Cascais with this being Saturday. So we walked back recharging the kids at another Italian Indian eatery along the way. I tried to find any history for why this combination has evolved here. We already saw about 5 places like that. But I could not find any info.

Isabella has been a little bully. Yesterday Georgia made a joke of her. Actually really repeated something I said earlier. Isabella frowned on her and said she will splash her with water. It sounded really funny and we all laughed. Then she said she will throw a plate at Georgia.

This morning Georgia was helping Isabella pick out some clothes to put on today and Isabella said “I’ll get your fingers pinched.” Isabella tried a bit more today in the same spirit and we gave her a timeout on her stroller while we were having some coffee and cake. She let the whole square know how upset she was. Ultimately she came around, apologized, and was wonderful. 

It was a very nice day. We decided that Irina will go back to Cascais with the kids during the week. It is very child-friendly and easy to navigate on the stroller. And only 40 minutes away.