Sintra and Lisbon harbour

 

This morning we did our first included Silversea Shore Excursion. As we needed to dis-embark about 8:15am Colleen and I decided to have a room service breakfast. Promptly at 7:05am our butler was knocking on our door, then proceeded to set up a lovely breakfast for us. We had opted for a light yogurt, fruit and cereal breakfast with coffee. So wonderful to have it all set up for us! 

Then off to our bus for about an hour drive up to Sintra. This is located in a small mountain range near Lisbon. Because of the cooler micro-climate it's always been a popular retreat, and there are many beautiful old estates and castles here. It's of course now a very popular tourist sport, but still very charming. We had a little time to explore the town, then drove back a different way. First through a National Park with pine and cork tree forests, then rolling hills with many estates and resorts. We came out to the Atlantic Ocean near Cascais (pronounced Cash-case) with many small rocky beaches and sand dunes. Then through the wealthy resort towns of Cascais and Estoril with hotels and famous casino. 

We returned to our ship about 1pm, in time for a light lunch on deck before sail-away at 2pm. We had a lovely view of the 7 hills of Lisbon, the April 25th bridge (named after the date of the democratic revolution in 1974) and the Christ the King statue. It's a hot day today, at least 25C so nice to have some breeze. I then went in to listen to a lecture on Portuguese explorers and the Age of Discovery that I really enjoyed, but needed some air afterwards. I decided to go for a swim, but as we were now in open ocean, the pool was now a wave pool! Lots of fun, but hard to swim. I just drifted with the waves.

Our little group of 20 met up in the Observation lounge at the front of the ship for a cocktail part at 5pm. A very nice and fun group of people of various backgrounds. 10 of us went to the Grill restaurant by the pool for dinner. A bit cool by that time, but they provided blankets. I had the special, which was a surf and turf of fish, shellfish and meat.

Then back to the cabin to catch up on emails etc and get ready for another full day tomorrow!








Comments

  1. Bonnie GabelOctober 10, 2025 at 6:42 PM

    Sounds like a pretty classy cruise. Loved how colourful Sinta looked.

    ReplyDelete

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