Cascais and Estoril

We didn't stay right in downtown Lisbon during our stay.  We were hoping to see the city, but also to enjoy the beach and some relaxing in Portugal. So we rented a condo just a little west of Lisbon in a small town called Estoril.  And just another mile or so west is the village of Cascais. 

 

First day on the beach near our condo!  Reunion with friends from home!

 

View up the beach in Estoril - we had dinner just to the left of this picture the first night.

 

This was one of the really nice buildings on the boardwalk by the beach. We never found out what it was!

This was the main square in Cascais, just up the beach.  Again with the awesome tile designs on the ground!

The Race in Lisbon!

The whole point of our visit to Lisbon was to run the Rock and Roll Marathon!  Well, half marathon for me and Beth, while Bruce ran the full.  The day before the race happened to be Beth's birthday, so we had a birthday dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe!

 The morning of the race, Bruce started the full marathon a bit west of where we stayed.  Beth and I took what turned out to be a THREE HOUR journey to the starting line.  First, a 15 minute walk to the train station followed by 30 minutes on the train into central Lisbon.  Then two subway trains took about 45 minutes more to a bus station.  At the bus station we waited 30 minutes to board busses that drove another 30 minutes out onto the Vasco de Gama Bridge where the race would begin. Our bus dropped off a 20 minute walk from the start line, so we pulled up just a few minutes before the race started.  NEVER imagined it would take that long!  

Here is a view of the race crowd on the bridge just before the start!  I know my finger is in the picture - I don't know why I do that, but I regularly photograph my finger.  Sorry.

 A view back towards central Lisbon from the Bridge start...

 Me and Beth getting ready to go!

So there are no more race pictures of us after this - it turned out to be a fairly hot day and we were sweaty and disgusting by the time we finished!  We grabbed lunch and bought dry tshirts at the mall near the finish while waiting for Bruce.  He came running in a little more than 2 hours after we finished and here he is approaching the finish line - still smiling!

It was a fun race and a fun day!  But we were thrilled to get back to the pool at our condo and relax for the rest of the afternoon and evening!

Lisbon - part 2

The western edge of Lisbon is a neighborhood called Belem and it has some of the best sights to visit in the city.  Our first stop (after Portugese pastries for breakfast snacks!) was the Jeronimos Monastary.   

 

Me in the chapel of the Monastary...

 Scott - maybe he is thinking about the meaning of life...the universe...lunch?

The Monument to the Discoveries sits just along the River.  Portugal boasts a wealth of famous explorers including Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Prince Henry the Navigator and Batholomeu Dias.  Many of them started their journeys from Lisbon.  All the famous figures have a statue on the monument and they face west out into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Just adjacent to the Monument is this section of pavement that shows a map of the world and notes the famous explorers and where they went.  It was just recently featured on an episode of the Amazing Race!

Lisbon

Portugal!!  So this is only two months late. I went to Lisbon the first week of October to run the Rock and Roll Half Marathon with my running partners from Atlanta - Beth and Bruce.  Beth's boyfriend Scott came along for the trip as well and the four of us had a great time! 

 

Lisbon was so sunny and beautiful!  We took a bus tour around the city the first day and here are some highlights:

 

It is a little difficult to see, but the outside of this building is covered in small hand-painted tiles.  They were everywhere and amazing!

Also, they had the most beautiful sidewalks in Portugal that I have ever seen!  Everywhere they had these black and white paver-type of bricks making up the sidewalks.  This was in a particularly lovely boulevard through the center of the city, but even the regular sidewalk had them.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Although this is a couple of days late, Happy Thanksgiving anyway!!  I celebrated Thursday evening with a group of about 15 friends.  My friends Alison and Joe from Pennsylvania were our hosts and everyone brought the sides and desserts.  It was good fun and a delicious dinner.  Thankful to have made so many good friends over this last year in London!

I still need to catch up the blog from my trip to Portugal in October and I've just returned last week from Cambodia and South Korea.  Lots going on in the next few weeks before Christmas but I'll be working on this too!