11/07/18 – 14/07/18 – Guincho, Lisbon
After Lisbon, we fancied a break from sightseeing and needed a good nights sleep so we took a short drive North along the coast to Guincho Beach for a few days. It is within the district of Cascais. I’d already read that Guincho beach is apparently one of the finest surfing beaches of Western Portugal, and having been there you can see why. It was so windy….enough to shake the moho. We stayed in a big car park for €2 a night overlooking the beach, which we shared with many surfers, surf schools and all the very cool camper vans that came with them!
Guicho is set amidst the beautiful Serra de Sintra Natural Park, which is clearly well loved as we saw many conservation projects happening at the time. The area has neat wooden walkways to protect the vegetation, which were great for walking Marley. The cafe, Duna Da Cresmina at the end of the walkway was a very nice treat. The cafe is very dog friendly in that they had 2 big dog bowls out and sold doggy biscuits, and it also wasn’t bad for vegetarian food. We chose not to eat, as it was bit overpriced for us, but we did have a coffee and a biscuit each (well Marley didn’t have a coffee!). The view from the cafe is gorge!
We spent our days at Guincho chilling and walking amongst the stunning scenery. No one took their dogs on the beaches there, so on the odd occasion we sneaked Marley down later on the eve, when it was clear of bathers and the Life Guard.
We treated ourselves to a film during one of the days, called A Quiet Place with the brilliant actress Emily Blunt featuring as one of the main characters. It’s quite a chilling film that makes you feel really tense…we like those types of films. It’s surprisingly how dark the moho is with all the blinds closed…with the whistling wind outside, it all added to the drama of the film. Totally recommend this film to anyone who likes a bit of suspense and drama!
We bumped into one of the owners of Lisbon Campers (camper van rental in Portugal). It was weird as we’d initially met him much further down the coast when getting repairs done on our vans. It’s quite a small country really. He told us that apparently this year Portugal is experiencing the coldest Summer in many years. Funny as we also heard that the UK is experiencing one of the hottest Summers. It has worked out well for us while travelling because Marley is really enjoying the cooler weather, but it did feel strange feeling cold again and wearing a hoodie.
