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Old 12-05-2005, 11:23 AM   #11 (permalink)
Cimarron29414
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Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!
Quote:
Originally Posted by little_tippler
"7 nights in Cascais with day trips to Lisbon, Sintra, Obidos, etc."

Well it depends what kind of travel you like. Cascais is a nice place, though small it's quite busy. Lots of tourists and lots of foreigners, including foreign restaurants and bars. Easy to meet people, a good place to shop, eat well (watch out for the centre as there are a lot of expensive restaurants), there are some cute beaches, and of course a few kms away you have huge fine sand beaches with good surf waves, lots of bars, and the Sintra sierra, which is classified as a World Heritage Site. It's cute, very green and lush and completely unlike the rest of portugal, a little microclimate all it's own, there's a couple of castles, palaces and gardens to visit, lots of organized outdoor activities like hiking, rock climbing etc. There are also some typical foods you can find in Sintra which date back to Arab occupation times which are yummy (and also the remains of an old moorish castle you can visit). Also some nice museums (toy museum, contemporary art museum).
Óbidos is cute for a quick day trip, it's a walled medieval city and retains some of it's old world charm, there are a few shops and some nice churches. Also famous for it's chocolate festival held once a year.

Lisbon is a beautiful and very diverse city, although the traffic is pretty bad. We do have an underground though. There are many interesting sights to see in Lisbon, I recommend the Belém area and also Chiado for museums, shops, old buildings and churches, and I could go on. There's lots to see. Also the Bairro Alto and Santos areas are great for night life and cool restaurants.

Portugal has good hospitality and good food and wines, usually good weather and also lots of undiscovered places still to see.

I can come back and post some photos later if you like.
Obidos is what brought us to Portugal. We saw it on a travel show 5 years ago and wrote it on our list.

We are big into Castles/Palaces/Churches. Typically, we won't go to museums unless they have a monumental artifact (i.e. Rosetta stone at British Museum). The only reason is because they are SO time consuming. Are there any "must see" museums? I would hate to go to Lisbon and miss an important artifact.

Is Lisbon worse than London/Edinburgh for traffic? That's all I can compare to. The largest city I've driven in the US is Chicago - and that was easy.

All of my companions are in good health and will hike miles a day without any trouble. We appreciate a good challenge! I am the only one that would do any real climbing, though.

We love wines - looking forward to the Ports. Vinyards to try?
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