Portugal Part II - Cascais and Sintra (One Big Adventure)

Many times the best memories and moments in life are born out of spontaneity. Our weekend in Cascais and Sintra seemed to be all about this and adventure.

We took the train from Lisbon to Cascais, a small beach town on the Portugese coast. Before the trip, we'd decided to have a relaxing, beach vacation but after half a day of laying out on the beach we both decided we needed to do something (just laying around is not the Wham's style!) We went into town, had amazing sushi and then watched a free evening concert that was on the boardwalk.

The next day, I was looking at our map at breakfast. Aaron saw an ad for a scooter rental and said "we should rent scooters today" and laughed. I did as well, but then we thought: we should rent scooters today!

So we rented this bad boy that we called the death-mobile: a Vespa-looking scooter for two. We decided Aaron would be the driver (I'm a bit more aggressive of a driver and we figured that would be bad for, you know, our lives and all). The scooter was hard to drive- it was actually turning that was the worst. But being the passenger was even harder!

We rode the death-mobile up the coast and then cut inland. We had planned to visit a winery on the way to Sintra but it was closed on Sundays, so we ducked into a tiny restaurant in the middle of a small village and had amazing tapas in the sun. After, we continued back to the road and into the rolling hills of Sintra (yes, huge hills on the death-mobile... Yikes!)

Our first stop was at Quinta da Regaleira, a beautiful house and grounds that was once a summer residence for the family that lived there. In the 1840s the family started work to have parts of it transformed by a famous Portuguese architect. The house itself features gorgeous carvings and beautifully detailed features throughout. At the very top is a terrace that has panoramic views of the hills and ocean. If you thought the house was impressive, the grounds were even more spectacular.

There are underground caves, lookout towers, an aquarium, a huge well that goes 27 meters down with a spiral staircase, a greenhouse, small chapel with crypt and a waterfall. Basically, anywhere you wanted to go on this property, you could, so we just explored.

We took the spiral staircase down the well and into the dark, wet caves. We followed the cave until we reached an opening under the waterfall. At the waterfall, there were these small stones that you could walk across to get to the other side. If you fell, you were only knee deep in green-looking water and there was nothing to hang onto (see bottom left photo above). This was actually really scary- it's all about balance, but we both made it out without falling in! 

After touring the property, we climbed back on the death-mobile and tried to turn out of the parking area in a ton of traffic... and we almost fell over in front of everyone. It was probably the most awkward moment we could've chosen to  have a mishap and I'm sure it was hilarious for everyone else: these awkward tourists almost tipped over in their scooter that has "rental" written all over it! We climbed further up the largest hill in Sintra and took a winding, cobblestone path up. Again, not the best choice for the death-mobile, but at the top was a castle and a palace. 

As we were about to buy tickets for the palace, Aaron spotted a flier for zip lining. It was 4:55 and the next zip line tour left at 5. We ran up part of the hill (because trying to get back on the scooter was going to take way too long) and made it just in time!

Up we went into the trees, strapped in high above taking in the amazing views... and then stepping off the platform to zoom from tree top to tree top. In all we zip lined for 1 km / .6 miles and were 30 meters / roughly 100 ft above the ground. The best line was one where you zip lined over the castle wall. It was amazing.

Once we were back on solid ground, we explored the Moorish castle and hiked up to the top. The sun was setting so we had to rush back to the death-mobile because there was no way we were riding that thing in the dark!

What happened next was an accident: we decided to take the short cut so that it would take less time to get back. Down the cobblestone path we went and out onto the pavement road. We started going up a small hill and as we came down the crest, we discovered we were entering the freeway on our death-mobile.

There was no way to correct what we had done: here we were on a 100 km per hour freeway on our scooter. Cars were whizzing past as the wind was whipping into our helmets. Aaron was hugging the right lane as I was clutching with all my strength to him. The fastest we went was 80 km per hour and we were only on the freeway for 5-10 minutes, but it felt like 20. When we got back to our hotel, both of us were in complete shock.

We headed straight to the hotel bar and wow a beer has never tasted so good : ) We sat there recalling our disbelief and reveling in the crazy experience. While there, we found a picture on the internet and both started laughing so hard that I actually started crying. It was the "my abs are hurting to the point where this physically hurts and I should stop but I can't" laughing.  We just thought the picture was hilarious.

That night we had an amazing dinner by the ocean, and we both agreed that this has been our favorite day of this amazing adventure we are on.

Would I recommend Portugal? Absolutely. The country was beautiful, people were very nice, everything was incredibly cheap, weather was amazing and there is so much to see. Just maybe not by scooter : )