20111105  Gaia to Cascais

Owen Photos      Dolores Photos

Up early (0600). Get ready to travel. Put large suitcase in the passageway for pickup.

Down to breakfast, which was still good but missed several items as though they'd run out at the end of the season. Still nice.

We packed up our carry-ons and prepared to leave. I'm sitting in the lounge typing these notes, but it's time to depart. More later.

The bus took us south, with a pit stop, to the city of Cuimbra. This place was once the capital of Portugal and its palace the home of King John III. We walked through the University grounds and learned about it.

Then we went to the downtown shopping area for some free time. I bought a USB camera card reader. Dolores bought pastries and four little port wine bottles. We wandered around for some time, very nice in the sun, but cool in the shade.

We went then to a hotel near the site of the Fatima miracle for lunch. Lunch was very good and interesting. Russian salad, turkey & roast potatoes, dessert.

We loaded up again and went to the area of Fatima, Portugal, the site of the miracle of three shephard children being addressed by Mary. The other five went into the site and looked around. I bought a tee-shirt for Jamie and other stuff. Dolores also found some things.

We then ran two hours to our hotel in Cascais. We were told we were being upgraded from the hotel in the brochure. It’s beautiful.

We went through Lisbon, then west, then a little north and found this upgrade. It was refurbished in April of this year and is beautiful. Huge rooms, light colors, huge bathroom with a shaded glass window between the living area and the bathing area. Love it.

We bought some internet time when checking in, so I'll try uploading the web site and getting that up to date.

Rather than go out for dinner, each couple had picked up some nibblies during the day. So the six of us sat in Glenn & Lou's room and made up a lunch-type meal and drank a bunch of wine. Goot chat.

Then we came back to our room and we're settling in.

Got a shock when we were told we'd be awakend Monday at 0400 for transportation to the airport.

Oh, well.

20111106  Cascais, Portugal

Owen Photos

Dolores woke up coughing and with a runny nose, and I'm a little stuffy as well. So we elected to take it easy today. We cancelled out of the morning (half-day) tour. Dolores slept in until 0900, then we went down for breakfast.

This is a beautiful hotel (see link above for details). The breakfast was nice, all buffet, but nice.

The grounds are lovely. Upper, shallow, pool is photogenic, downhill from it is the outdoor pool and under it is the heated inside pool. Adjacent to the indoor pool are the hot tub, sauna, steam room, showers (one with a wooden bucket), the spa room and the fitness room. There were two attendants to help one.

The bar is nice, but only serves Portuguese beer and wines. All nation's liquors are available.

I did a bunch of work on the web site and uploaded files to it. It's up-do-date insofar as text throught 11/5 and all my photos through 11/5. Needs the last two days and all Dolores' photos. We'll do that at home.

Later, the others came back from downtown. We had a glass or two in Glenn & Marylou's room, then went to the farewell dinner. We ran into Rui on the way and gave him his envelope. He said our group was a pleasure to have because we knew what we were doing, and looked out for each other – so we were prompt and caused no trouble. Plus, we had fun.

After the dinner, we went back to our hotel and said our good-byes and thanks. We hope to do another trip with this gang.

Off to bed for an early departure.