Wandering Works for Us PodcastDate: 2 May 2026
Title: Day Trips Beyond Lisbon: Cascais, Santa Cruz, Vimeiro, Lourinhã
Summary of Episode
Looking for the best day trips from Lisbon? In this episode, we explore five destinations within easy reach of the capital — from the upscale coastal town of Cascais to the dinosaur fossils of Lourinhã, a Napoleonic battlefield at Vimeiro, and one of our favourite beaches on the Silver Coast. Three years of living in Portugal and we're still finding new places to love.
In part one of their day trips series, they wander through the upscale-but-welcoming coastal town of Cascais (including a stunning seafood platter at Baía de Peixe), explore the charming beach town of Santa Cruz, uncover the little-known Napoleonic battlefield at Vimeiro, geek out over dinosaur fossils in Lourinhã, and sing the praises of Areia Branca, one of their favourite beaches on the Silver Coast. Lesser-known doesn't mean less worth visiting.
Grab your car keys.
Key Topics
[03:10] Why Cascais deserves more than a half-day stop — and why Shelley and Beth almost missed it after three years of living in Portugal
[04:35] Getting to Cascais: driving vs. the commuter train from Lisbon (both about 40 minutes)
[05:40] The best bakery find in Cascais: Padaria Brunch & Specialty Coffee
[06:15] Walking the Cascais waterfront — the ocean path, Boca do Inferno rock arch, and what they'd do differently next time
[08:40] Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães and the gorgeous Parque Marechal Carmona (peacocks, turtles, and chickens who ignore the "do not feed" signs)
[11:18] The Citadel of Cascais — repurposed as galleries, restaurants, and shops, Fortress of Our Lady of Light and the statue of King Carlos I at the marina
[13:50] Lunch at Baía de Peixe: a seafood platter for two at €35 per person that was worth every euro
[19:10] Santa Cruz: a beach town with great cliffs, a walkable waterfront, a Saturday market, and a small chapel worth stepping into
[23:30] The accidental discovery — the river trail to Porto Novo beach that led them straight to a Virgin Mary statue on the cliffs
[26:45] Vimeiro and the Battle of Vimeiro Interpretation Center: the first major Napoleonic battle in Portugal and Wellington's first significant victory
[32:30] Lourinhã's surprising dinosaur heritage — and why they recommend the Museu da Lourinhã over the Dino Park (unless you have kids)
[35:30] Areia Branca: one of their favourite local beaches, with restaurant recommendations including West 23 by Chakall, Alta, and Ansom Brewery
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RESOURCES & LINKS
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- Free Lisbon Itinerary
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- Essentials for every trip
- Renting a car in Portugal
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Transcript:
Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast wandering works for us. I'm Shelley And we're finally back again We keep taking breaks
And I'm Beth.
Even though we don't, you know, we take the breaks, it doesn't mean we're just sitting around doing nothing.
no, we're partially taking breaks because we're so blessed busy. And part of that is because we've now been here three years. Yes. We have more friends, we have more social stuff, we've joined a couple of card groups, you know.
Where?
Speaker 2 (01:05.089)
We are doing things. Yeah, we're grooving over here.
It's big fun.
But that also means that we still get out for the occasional day trip to go explore Portugal some more. And so last month we had Eli here. Hi Eli. And we did a couple of things with him. And then we've done a couple of things before he was here. And I don't know, we did one thing after.
Yes!
Speaker 1 (01:22.634)
Bye Eli.
Speaker 1 (01:36.488)
him yeah so and all of them are kind of lesser known in a way maybe yeah and so we decided we should put together a podcast with all of those things yes and it's kind of part one because we're gonna have more after our next visitor
Short trips here
Speaker 2 (01:56.13)
Probably so. Well, I don't know. She's wanting to do stuff we've already done. Well, see? You never know where we might escape to. Plus, any of you out there listening have any suggestions on places, know, lesser known places we can go? Let us know. We still haven't really explored the eastern part of Portugal very much.
And we'll see.
Speaker 1 (02:20.406)
We have not, and summer's not the time to do it. So maybe this fall we'll pop over there. And we also have not spent nearly enough time in the Alenteju.
Alan Taju or the Algarve really?
We've, yeah, yeah, we need to do more.
All right, we'll get on that. We'll make a list. But today we're to talk about a few places that are kind of lesser known to the day trip people out there. Although the first one we're going to talk about is actually a very popular day trip from Lesbians.
It is, but we hadn't been before.
Speaker 2 (02:57.567)
We've been here three years and still hadn't made it out to cash cash.
Which took us a long time to figure out how to pronounce.
Yes, but it's such a beautiful little town. my gosh. How did we miss it?
It is. Someone described it to me as the, what did they say? The, not the Hollywood Boulevard. No, it wasn't that either, but it was something like that of Portugal because it is, it's upscale in general.
Rodeo Drive.
Speaker 2 (03:29.774)
It is very, but it's so easy to get to. And it is a simple day trip that is usually, I wonder if any of y'all could hear the roosters in the background. Can y'all hear them? Anyway, it's one that's usually paired up with like Sintra and Cabo da Roca, Rocha rather, da Rocha. And so, you know, it's kind of one of those.
Rocha.
Speaker 2 (03:56.63)
trips that you pop in and you see the beach, maybe you walk around downtown and then you leave to go to Sentra or do something else. And we decided we were going, it was kind of almost spontaneous. We were dropping Eli off at the airport and we had talked about going back into Alfama and spending the day since we didn't get a chance to do that when he was here and just mess around since we were in Lisbon. And I was like,
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (04:25.336)
Why don't we go somewhere we haven't been? And it was an easy 40 minute drive out to Keshkais. Now we drove because we have a car, but you can take a train, a commuter train out there, and it takes about 40 minutes still to get there. But that train apparently drops you off like two blocks from the beach.
it does.
Speaker 1 (04:46.198)
Yeah, yeah, it comes right in. And we, I can't remember now how we found parking. Did I look it up?
I think you did look it up because we wanted to go to a bakery first and have some breakfast.
Oh, that's right. And so I found a garage, an underground garage, and then we just walked down from there.
So we just parked and then we walked. So the whole city is walkable. I mean it took us 20 minutes to get back down to the ocean from where we were and 20 minutes to get over to the marina area. It was and then yeah.
Yeah. I would say it's very walkable.
Speaker 2 (05:22.688)
Yes, very walkable. It's not as hilly as it is in Lisbon and it's a beautiful city. So when we got there, we of course stopped at a wonderful bakery and had some pastry. And do we even remember the name of that bakery?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (05:40.768)
No, why don't you pause?
And so the name of the bakery is...
crust and it's really Padaira, brunch and specialty coffee.
specialty coffee but they had such lovely pastries. were good. The coffee was amazing.
It was very worth going up in there. It's kind of like up in the business district of college. A lot of apartment buildings or condo buildings were kind of thing, but it was definitely worth seeking out. Highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (06:06.85)
I didn't work.
Speaker 2 (06:15.34)
And then from there, we walked down to the waterfront. Now, the whole waterfront area has a great place for people to walk and bike. Sidewalk, biker lane, and you're right there on the ocean where the cliffs, well, they weren't really cliffs, there were a lot of rocky places where.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:32.782)
Yeah, they've done a really good job of getting you, giving you access to be on a sidewalk, if you will, or in the bike lane and still be right along the ocean all along to see it.
Yeah, people were out walking and being all healthy and stuff.
Walking their dogs. There were a lot of runners. saw it. We don't see runners very often. We see a lot of cyclists here. I mean where we live in the areas where we are. We see a lot of cyclists. We see a lot of surfers of course. But we don't see tons of people running for exercise like we did in the United States. But we saw many of them in Kashkais, which
makes me wonder if those were people that have moved in there and aren't from there because it does have a very large immigrant or expat population.
It does from what we understand. Yeah. But we we didn't make it to this particular place along that area called the Boca do Inferno. And apparently that is a beautiful rock arch that you can see. And it kind of starts, I think, I think the walk kind of starts up that way. And then it gradually goes downhill through the town, you know, to the marina out to the fort and to the main beach area.
Speaker 1 (08:04.226)
We'll have to go up there next time we're down there.
And we didn't, we had a plan on where we were gonna eat lunch and we saw a few things on the map that we were gonna just kind of check out. We were just there doing almost like, I guess a scouting trip. weren't really, we were wandering. We had no expectations. But we found some really cool places.
wandering is what we were doing.
We just wandered.
Yeah, and the first thing as we're walking down along the ocean and stuff that I saw was I'm looking for the name of it. Here it is the musee muse you Thank you museo kundish de Castro Garamayesh Gimara I Cannot get that right
Speaker 2 (08:47.084)
sale?
Speaker 2 (08:54.296)
Kim Array.
Speaker 1 (09:02.53)
There we go. And I said, Shelly, look at this house. I mean, was this beautiful, this villa, mansion kind of house, very, very old and come to find out it is open as a museum, except on Mondays, which is the day we were. But attached to it is the Park Marischal Carmona. Do you think that's pronounced that right?
We'll on a Monday.
Speaker 2 (09:31.79)
sounds about right.
Okay. And it is a large green space. And so we kind of looked around the outside of the house and took a bunch of pictures and there's a really cool fountain with a giant tile background. Remember that story told by the tile there. Yeah, it was beautiful. So we, we looked at all that and then we wandered into this park park. Yeah. This other park and
Other
It was a really great walk. There were chickens and roosters everywhere, appropriate that we can hear ours next door.
and peacocks.
Speaker 1 (10:13.358)
Turtles. have a beautiful pond there. I'll call it a pond because it's not really big enough to be a lake. And there were tons of turtles. And when we were there, the sun was out and they were up on logs and you know how they pile on top of each other and they were all sunning and the swans and the ducks were wandering around and the chickens. We went to one of the cafes that's right there to have a drink.
and the chickens walk right up to the tables and try to get you to give them some food. They're very tame.
Here's a big old sign that says, don't feed the chicken. But people come and feed the chicken.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, did. And so we just had a really nice walk around that park. And it's very interesting because it's it's very there's lots of little areas like you go in a circle and you go around and there's this area with a statue and then you go around another corner and there's the pond and you go it was really well laid out. I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 2 (11:28.406)
And so once we decided to leave the park area, which was kind of hard to do, it was just so pretty and we were having such a good time. Every time we turn around a corner, there's like a statue or something to take eight pictures of it. But I wanted to see the fort, the Citadel area. And so we kind of walked that direction. And what I didn't quite understand at the time is that it's not necessarily a historic fort inside there.
You
Speaker 2 (11:58.21)
they have got a lot of art galleries and restaurants. They've missed it. And so you could say they repurposed it or they've gentrified it a bit. It's we didn't go inside that area because we were on our way to lunch and we had a specific time that we wanted to be there. But it looked like like a really neat place to walk through and go shopping. And so we we went around kind of the outside of it that took us down to
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:27.778)
the marina and the fort itself is called the fortress nosa signora the lose the cash cash and so I mean it's humongous you can't miss it
No, you can't. And it translates to...
Fortress, Our Lady of Light of Kishkish. There you go. Or Fort, yeah. And so we walked around the outside of it and there's some buskers on the area down there that we're seeing in and we were checking out the restaurants on the water and then the marina is right there and so there's all these boats that are docked at the dock. Boats that are just anchored out in the water with their little dings.
Very nice boots.
Speaker 1 (13:08.482)
Yeah and they I think there were still fishing boats there I mean small ones.
There were small fishing boats. was a Monday. guess people had the day off. You didn't see much coming in and out of that Marina at all. There wasn't much activity.
And by the fort, which king was that that had the giant statue that was so nice? Okay.
Carlos, Carlos the first. He was apparently, he loved that area. He and his son, or maybe it was he and his father. I can't remember which, but they loved that area. They had a house down there and that's where they vacationed in the summer.
So it looks like the statue looks like he's kind of standing at the railing of a boat.
Speaker 2 (13:49.731)
He looks like an old fisherman.
He's a compass in his hand, he's got something in his hand. Yeah, was a nice bronze statue in about, I don't know, 20 feet tall or something.
And then after we took all of our pictures and enjoyed the view and thought, my gosh, how in the world did we get down here on such a gorgeous day in March? Because it was like 75 degrees. It was amazing. We ended up at a restaurant that had been recommended by a group of people, I believe on the silver coast, a taste of silver coast. And it was by a Depeche.
gorgeous
Speaker 1 (14:31.81)
Yes, Bayer de Peix.
And we went there because...
Well, we wanted to sit outside and they have a lovely on the second floor of Terrace where you can overlook the water and stuff. And we saw that they had these incredible seafood platters.
The view was amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:51.463)
my gosh. That whole trip was worth the seafood.
It was. I'd go back just to eat that seafood platter. Yes. Now it was you order it like, like we ordered one for two and it was how much per person? Which you know for here is not insignificant, but
35 euro per person.
Speaker 2 (15:13.42)
Yeah, it's expensive for here. But there was expensive food on that platter.
It was worth
Speaker 1 (15:19.39)
It was worth every euro. It was so good.
And we had a great bottle of Vinho Verde while we... And I mean, there was shrimp and mussels and oysters and crab. I think that's the first time we've actually had crab in Portugal, which is a shame from what I understand, but we just haven't found it much here. No, and there was a crab salad-like thing.
recommended by our waiters.
Speaker 1 (15:32.972)
Which we haven't seen very much. No.
Speaker 1 (15:44.642)
Don't see it that often.
Speaker 2 (15:49.538)
We had Persebis, which are the barnacles, the cacowarnacles. There were clams. There were, I'm missing one, the whelks.
Yeah, that's the only thing I didn't like.
Yeah, and they were smaller wilks. It was a little bit. And I think the only thing we didn't have was octopus. But you could order an octopus salad. Well, a of people did while we were there.
computer thing.
Yeah, yeah, come to think of it.
Speaker 1 (16:15.638)
Yeah, it must be good. And you see octopus a lot more often. and those shrimp in that sauce.
There was a shrimp and garlic sauce and then they had a whole ray of shrimp that were just boiled. We couldn't eat it all.
We couldn't and there were muscles. muscles are really good.
I paste myself in everything. Yeah.
And then what was it? the oysters. The raw oyster.
Speaker 2 (16:42.88)
Oysters are really. Yeah, we don't see raw oysters around here very much either. Like in a seafood capital. I don't know. Maybe we're not eating at the right places, but still, that was worth it. Highly recommend if you love shellfish.
So we really enjoyed
Speaker 1 (17:00.237)
Yes.
And so after that, we had to walk it off. Not only the wine, but the food. Yes. Or not only the food, but the wine. And so we just kind of, we headed back down the hill to the main, I would guess it'd be the city center.
Yeah, like the market square or whatever.
It was right in front of the main beach there where apparently the president, the ex-president, not the one we have now, but the one we had before, swam in that ocean right there at that beach every day. I can't remember who told me that, but I just learned it recently.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:34.979)
Yes.
And then we walked around for like, what an hour.
Yeah, and it's just so pretty it's beautiful. It's the
all kinds of pubs and restaurants through there. architecture was amazing.
It was really pretty.
Speaker 2 (17:52.046)
It's beautiful little town. And about that time, that's probably about four or five in the afternoon by the time we were finished with that. We had to get back to poor Scoot because he'd been left alone for quite some time. Yes, all day. So we had to leave. So technically speaking, we probably spent a little more than a half day there. And your general tour is usually about a half day.
And I would say it actually merits a good full day. If you wanna go and go shopping and do lunch and lay on the beach and just experience the whole town, or at least this small chunk of the town, you need a good full day.
Yes
Speaker 1 (18:33.836)
But we also like to linger in places. Someone who's hoofing it from thing to thing and is happy doing that could probably get it done in a half day.
Nah, you know us, we have to wander. Yeah, we wouldn't.
We wouldn't do it, but yeah, it was a really nice town and I had heard so much about it. I was afraid that it was going to be a bit like Disney World. You know what I mean? Everything was so perfect and that kind of thing and just a, don't know. I wasn't sure if I would like it. I thought it might be too upscale.
But I was wrong. It doesn't feel like that.
not sure I'd want to be there during the dead of summer tourist season, but I would definitely go back in June.
Speaker 1 (19:25.24)
It'd be very busy.
Yeah, before it, not July and August. Yeah. And I will say that,
but before it got crazy.
Speaker 1 (19:38.072)
I idea what I was going to say.
I have a great program now that I'm paying for that does all that for me. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (19:53.091)
Yay!
All right, so I did that, did that, did that. I think we're good on, one of the other places that we like to visit or we visited recently is the area of Santa Cruz. But I'm going to preface this with we're doing three different parts of this area. We're doing La Reña, which is the outline of the area. And then Santa Cruz and Vermeeru are part,
of Lorraine.
Right, and they're right there together.
Yeah, and this is about an hour maybe 45 minute drive north of Lisbon. You would need a car to get to these places. There are buses that would take you to Lourinha, but then to get to Santa Cruz or get to Vemeru, it would be more difficult. This is definitely something that you want to do in a car.
Speaker 1 (20:48.002)
Yes.
So let's start with Santa Cruz.
And even though Santa Cruz and I just said Vamiru are right there together, interestingly enough we did them two separate. We didn't know what we were doing. So anyway, Santa Cruz came first.
But we didn't know what we
Speaker 2 (21:08.482)
We had heard from several different people or we'd seen online where this is a beautiful beach town, Santa Cruz. And so we were itching to get out of the house. And so we decided, let's go see Santa Cruz. And let's take the dog, it'll be fun.
That's right. Day trip. We took him with us and actually that was a good one to take him with us.
because Santa Cruz is also a beautiful beach town with great cliffs, but it was easily walkable with him. And we were there, I'm going to say on a Saturday, where all the open markets were open and we could walk through the center of town and see all the booths where people were selling their crafts and spices and foods and whatnot. And people were laying out on the beach, and this was in September,
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:02.524)
Is that when it was I was just wondering
was so hot in September when we were there. And it was such a beautiful little town and the views there are just amazing. And so of course we spent our day basically just wondering about the town.
That's right, it was.
Speaker 1 (22:15.234)
They really are.
Speaker 1 (22:22.314)
Imagine that. we eat? No, we went.
I don't think we did.
Speaker 1 (22:29.73)
trying to think. think we went, we stopped for an ice cream or something or something to drink or...
Well, they had several places where you'd walk along the beachfront. So they had a great walk there just to walk the beachfront.
Yet another town that's done a great area all along the beach where you can walk and there's restaurants and cafes.
Yeah, because we'd stopped to get a drink at a cafe. And water and I mean, because it was it was still hot in the middle of September. And then we meandered up some stairs where there was another just like large patio walkway area that led to a different place. But, know, you got to see a higher view of the beach area in the town.
because Scoop needed some.
Speaker 1 (23:14.119)
And remember those, they had those benches, they were swings weren't they?
No, they were benches, but they were underneath like a cover.
a striped canopy over them and not only were they incredibly charming but when the sun's beating down you can go and sit on those and get into a little bit of shade.
And so we just, yeah, it's one of those places where you're not there to really be touristy. You're there to wonder about and you're there to enjoy the beach, I think.
Yeah. the town, which is right there, you know, adjacent to the beach, the old town area where the market was and all that. was very, it was charming. And I found, as you said, I found a small chapel that happened to be open. Yay. And I went in, of course, and it was just delightful. It was very pretty.
Speaker 2 (24:15.83)
It was. But the funny thing was, as we were driving down to Santa Cruz and we were headed toward through roads that we haven't been before, we came across this area where if you looked off to the left, there was like a giant beach like, well, a boardwalk walkway that looked like a trail that they. A long river.
on the river.
And it was along a river and we followed it in the car until we actually crossed the river. And when you look out over to the right, once you cross that, there's the beach area. We were like, how cool is this? We need to come back and explore this sometime. Let's put it on our list, you know, because we didn't have time to do it that day. Right. And then our friends, Bill and Liz. Bill and recommended that we go visit the little town and the battlefield of Vamaru.
I'm Liz.
Speaker 2 (25:08.184)
Bill and Liz live in Scotland. Dunblane? No, that's David and Benita. I don't know where they're. They're in Dunblane as They live in Scotland in Dunblane, but they had a house down here in Portugal. And so they did a lot in their 20 some odd years of living here, they did a lot of exploring Portugal and they knew that I loved history. And so they wanted to, hey, haven't you seen this before? And we're like, well, no.
dumb blindness.
Speaker 2 (25:37.634)
So the first thing they did when they drove us out there and we went through Lorraine to get there, that we stopped at a place that has like a little covered area where a fountain used to be. It turns out that's where they used to have thermal spas in that area. They've closed now. Yeah, because.
Unfortunately, they...
I mean, obviously the thermal is still there, but it's not being used.
Nothing's being used. It's all closed down right now. But we stopped there so that we could go for a walk. And we had the dog with us too. Not Scoot, but we had their dog. Their dog. And so they was like, it's a mile walk. It's really flat, but it's a beautiful walk. Let's go walk it. So we're trudging along and looking around. I'm like, wait a minute. This looks familiar. Wait, this is the trail we said we wanted to go.
And wait, this is it.
Speaker 2 (26:28.874)
And so we walked about a mile to the beach area, which was incredibly, and that is Porto Novo. That's the name of the town. Right. And you walk, you you cross back over the bridge there. And then as you go where the beach area is, there are some restaurants back in there. And so we were going to go eat lunch while we walk over there to figure out what restaurant we're going to eat at. Plus, Bill had gone back to get the car.
So that we didn't have to walk a whole mile back before we went somewhere else and we're looking out onto the cliff And there's a giant statue out on the cliff the Virgin Mary Was she a virgin at that point though? anyway
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:10.4)
And who knows? Our lady. We'll just call her our
Mary was out there and so I mean that was incredibly beautiful so we spent like 10 minutes just taking pictures of the
We did!
and it's a great place to have lunch out there. It was another beautiful day where, you know, we were a little chilly, but it wasn't that bad. It was in late September. And after that, they drove us up to the town of Vemeru proper, and that's where the battlefield is.
Speaker 1 (27:50.752)
And we went to the Interpretation Center of Batalha do the Myro.
Which is the battle of Vamir.
And I think it's called the interpretation center because it's not just a museum. It's more about also showing like what the tents look like and their campsites and it has some of that stuff outside as well as inside and I can just see school groups going through there.
Yeah, it's definitely geared to toward school groups. Yeah, children and we were able to do an audio tour of the place. In English, thank goodness.
And I you said it's geared toward kids I I think kids would really enjoy it and There's definitely a lot for them, but it's also very interesting for adults
Speaker 2 (28:49.258)
If you love battle history, this is totally something you need to do, especially if you're really interested in the Napoleonic Wars. Because this one was the first main battle that Portuguese fought Napoleon here in Portugal. And it's really famous mainly because a lot of people died, but also it was the first one that Wellington, who wasn't actually the Wellington at the
time he was still like General Will. actually won a major battle. Yeah.
Lee.
And you can look you can see the ground where they fought. Yes you can
I mean the the interpretation center is right there on the battlefield and then you can look out and you can see where the fields and everything are and I thought it was really interesting because I don't know much about the Napoleonic Wars and I don't know much about what happened here in Portugal except I do now because of this and and so it was just I think it was really great interpretation of what
Speaker 1 (29:35.82)
Yeah, the fear.
Speaker 1 (29:49.3)
Yes
Speaker 2 (29:57.026)
happened there and why it was so important. Especially since it was one of those, Napoleon had basically taken over most of Europe at that point, I believe, decided that he wanted Portugal too because
In 1807 is when he decided he wanted Portugal.
And so when he entered, the English came to the rescue. Thank goodness, because the Portuguese would not have been able to hold them down and sent them off.
French came to the rescue.
No, we were fighting the fridge.
Speaker 1 (30:31.502)
So French forces march in. Oh, I beg your pardon. I was reading that wrong. I'm like, what is this? Correct. Geez, I got lost for a minute.
Napoleon was part of France.
invaded Portugal?
And the royal family fled to Brazil.
So instead of, you know, being there for everybody, they took off and went to Brazil, which is a whole other story we'll have to tell at some point. OK, that was kind of odd. But yeah, England came in, saved their butts. And what was really kind of crappy about this, though, is Portugal let Napoleon take his take his troops, take his ships, take his weapons, take everything and just leave. And England was like, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 2 (31:18.322)
And so Wellesley had to go back to England and go through an inquisition sort of thing. He was exonerated, obviously, because I mean, he is very famous general and leader of many battles. But yeah, it was a big deal because they shouldn't have let him do that. They were just kind of like, well, you lost. It's OK. Just take your toys and go home.
Yeah, that's crazy. that part of the war actually went on for six years in Spain and Portugal.
Yeah. Cool. Napoleon came back.
Speaker 2 (31:53.901)
You
as they do. and you know the so there's this what am I trying to say this this incredibly huge history right there and yet it is a very tiny little town. Yes. Village.
And we didn't even know it existed until our friends told us about it.
We didn't. But the museum itself, it shows you a lot of things like what their uniforms looked like and their living conditions. And it has charts that tell you like how much beer per day or whatever it was they're allowed.
Like five thirds of a ration. I'm like.
Speaker 1 (32:39.296)
Yeah, was. What's five thirds? But it was really, I thought it was very interesting. I learned, actually learned a lot going through that. And the people at the museum were so nice. Yeah, we were the, no, there was one other couple in there when we were in there and that was it.
nice.
Speaker 2 (33:00.238)
Other couple was filming something so we were just we were the only tourist in town. Yeah
That's right.
Speaker 1 (33:07.072)
It would be packed with school groups, I think.
in the summer or not. Yeah. Yeah. In the fall.
In the fall and spring or something.
So I think if you really like that part of history or history in general and want to learn about it, I think that that would be a really good stop, especially if you're combining it with Santa Cruz, if you happen to be down in there.
you happen to be in the Lourignia area because that all kind of connects they're very close to one another and Lourignia is not only known for its beautiful beaches but for its dinosaur bones and fossils. Why?
Speaker 1 (33:37.133)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:49.454)
eggs. I'm gonna some
Speaker 2 (34:15.145)
Yeah, we were looking for the little we were looking for a grocery store at the time.
What is this dinosaur doing here, but?
It turns out there were a lot of dinosaur fossils and eggs and bones discovered in this area. And so now if you go into Lorena and you can go to there's two museums in town. There's the Dino Park, which has all kinds of signs and it looks really cool. And then you have the actual museum of Lorena. And that is the one we would recommend.
because they have all the fossils there. They have the eggs and things that you can learn about the time period, et cetera. And it's also only three euros.
We recommend it unless you have kids who are dinosaur crazy. It's about 16 euros, right? Yeah, but it has lots of interactive exhibits for kids. Again, lots of school groups go there. And we haven't checked it out, but there's evidently a whole new part to it.
Speaker 2 (35:11.95)
money getting into
Speaker 1 (35:33.026)
that is a Lego museum kind of, I don't know if it's museum, but a Lego interactive thing. Yeah, and so if you have kids that are the age that would be, you know, crazy about that kind of thing, then.
Legos are fun.
Speaker 2 (35:50.668)
It'll be something to do on a fun rainy day.
be worth going to.
area is also just a neat little town to be in. you go from Lorena, if you go a little south, you're gonna end up in Arreia Branca, which is the beach area, which is an incredible beach. And they have a beautiful boardwalk down along there and some great restaurants. mean, that's one of our favorite beaches to go to if we decide we're gonna drive out of town.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:26.69)
You took Scoot
just to walk around. It was one of the first truly sunny and warm days on a Sunday coming out of the raining season and everyone in Portugal just about had in this area had decided to go there. It was packed.
Easy. When the sun comes out, everybody comes out.
but it's a beautiful beach area.
And we recommend, there's great restaurants in the area. The West 23 by Chacal is there. He also has a beach restaurant, like a little bar down in Areia Branca.
Speaker 1 (37:09.064)
I think that one's Ariel Beach Bar and then West 23 by Chacal is up off the beach.
It might be something like that.
Speaker 2 (37:17.486)
It's up off the beach on the cliffs. It's amazing. It's It's higher ranked food, I would say.
It is amazing.
It's more like a chef's restaurant.
And there's Alto. That's also there. Alto? Alto.
Alta restaurant is very good.
Speaker 2 (37:35.95)
and we've eaten there and we thought it was great and there's a great pizzeria right on the beach too. So, you know, it's just a neat, it's a beach area. If you're looking for something to get out of Lisbon for a few days and you're just gonna drive up the coast and know, hang out on beaches, that is a lovely place to go.
It really is and it's more, well, you know, maybe in the middle of the summer down at the beach area, it's not like this, but away from that, it is more like just normal people who live there kind of town. And some really, and there's that great market with that woman that had that really good spice shop. That's their city market.
On normal days there would be fish vendors and vegetable vendors and all that. But there's also a woman who has really good spices and teas and stuff. Yes. Yeah. So it's a really fun town. and let's not forget one of our favorite beer brewers. Ansem. Ansem beer and Ansem Brewery. They are a fabulous British couple.
Shout out to.
Speaker 1 (38:55.214)
and they are one of the first people close to us, first brew houses that we discovered where we can get what we call craft beer from the United States. So more of stouts and English bitters and know, ales and those kinds of beers. So we actually own a growler from them and we quite often go down there and have it filled up.
We're seeing a lot more craft beers kind of come around since we've been here, but yeah, that was our first.
Yeah, still one of our favorites.
Speaker 2 (39:38.582)
Okay, so I think here is where we end part one of our podcast.
Yeah, because we have more to talk about, but we don't want to.
But yeah, it's running kind of long, which we sometimes do when we wander. But coming up in part two, we're going to talk about the Palacio do Pusaco, which is close to Coimbra.
One of favorite places.
Coimbra and we're going to talk about the Grutus de Miradar which is basically... Antonio, shout out Antonio who doesn't speak any English. He was telling me how to pronounce it the other day. That's great. And those are the caves that we visited kind of in the middle of Portugal in Miradar. my gosh that was really...
Speaker 1 (40:13.651)
Very well. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (40:30.122)
stalactites galactites
Speaker 2 (40:35.21)
And then last but not least, we're gonna talk about Buddha Eden Gardens and the Quinta de Cerejas, which is in Bamburó.
Another incredible couple of places.
And I'm sure that would take another 45 minutes. It will. we'll make that part too. we are... How do I end this?
We'll make that part.
Speaker 1 (41:06.914)
Well, you add on the recording that says, thank you for joining us.
Yeah, but I was like, but we should say something.
So We've probably told you before but we're gonna be gone for Just about the entire month of May We're gonna be in the UK. We're gonna be in England and Scotland and Northern Ireland again and then there will be lots of podcasting coming out of that but
We're going on a road trip this time. We're not just busing it. We are road tripping it.
Yes we are.
Speaker 1 (41:38.574)
we are. It's be big fun. So we'll have to tell you all about that. But I think this part one of this is we're done and we can say, poet art.
