Beach Bums

Cascais & Lisbon, Portugal, 25th-29th July 2012

Having finally arrived in Cascais, we were treated by Miika and Henna to a true travellers' welcome (beer and cheesecake) and eventually settled down to sleep. There was only one spare sofa so one of us would have to sleep on the floor - I did the gentleman routine and insisted that it be me, knowing that I would sleep like a baby anyway. This prediction turned out to be correct.

Host number 1 engaging in a kebab fight with M

...while host number 2 is far too busy for shenanigans like those.

Cascais is a small place on the coast so we did small-place-on-the-coast stuff. Fish at the restaurant. A day at the beach. Surfing.

The surfing episode was one that I looked forward to with bucketloads of trepidation. I always enjoy trying out new things, although I generally never miss an opportunity to injure myself and surfing seemed to fit the bill. Together with our South African instructor we did the basics on the beach: learnt how to lie on a board (successfully reproduced on the waves) and learnt how to stand up once we'd caught a wave. In the gentle, non-moving setting of the beach, the standing up was easy. It turned out to be less so once waves and motion were thrown into the mix. Normally a calm and reflective person, I managed to forget my left and right while trying to remember which side to stand up. Catching waves was easy - doing anything with them was not. Miika had done it before and we looked to him for inspiration, and one other guy in the group knew what he was doing as well. Looking to him for guidance was somewhat more difficult though as he was apparently the owner of an ultra-proud dad who stood on the beach taking pictures and waded into the sea shouting "WELL DONE OLIVER !" every time the guy managed to stand up. I caught a particularly good wave, sailed towards the shore, remembered which hand was my right and stood up with such enthusiasm that my forward motion propelled me up and over my board, crashing head-first into the sea before deciding that this probably wasn't going to be my day. Nonetheless, I'd managed to stand up - granted it was only for half a second and only on one leg, but it's a start.

We consoled ourselves with a beer at the beach bar afterwards, as all good surfers naturally do. I slept on the floor again, with very good results again.

T.I.C. - This is Cascais

While the gang busied themselves at the beach I headed into Lisbon for a bit of a wander around. It's an attractive town but looks more tired than Madrid and Sevilla. It's also probably the biggest city in Europe without a single flat surface as the roads undulate over hills all through town. It seemed a bit of a ghost town compared to those in Spain as well - most of the people milling around in the centre seemed to be tourists and the terrace restaurants were bursting at the seams. After wandering around and seeing everything I could be bothered to see, I hopped on the train back to Cascais. M insisted that I sleep on the sofa as I'd be more comfortable but its length combined with the arm rest ensured I woke up with a cricked neck every hour through the night. I decided to be a gentleman the following evening and sleep on the floor again.

 I don't remember what this is

This is a fountain 

This is a theatre 

 And this is a tram.

 The seafront at Cais do Sodre station

It was a lazy time in general and we were shown around slowly by the delightful hosts who seem to have adapted to the Mediterranean pace. It was a sudden jolt from this pace to find ourselves on the train back to Lisbon, heading for the airport. And that should be the end of the story. For me, it was not........