Thursday Sagres to Queluz

Thursday – Sagres to Queluz (outside of Lisbon)
We left our sleepy little town of Sagres early this am and took freeways to arrive at our hotel for the next two nights, another Pousada just outside of Lisbon. Approaching Lisbon there are many huge apartment complexes – not quite as bad as the Soviet ones in Prague and other previous eastern block countries but similar. There are many warnings in the guidebook re: taking care not to get robbed/mugged. It is definitely a poor country with the problems associated with being poor.
The Royal Palace is across the street and the hotel is “under the clocktower.” I hope the clock doesn’t chime out the hours! We arrived here at 12 noon so we just through our luggage into storage and headed out to see the area as we plan to spend all day in Lisbon tomorrow.
Driving out to the coastal towns just west of here was impressive. These towns are referred to as the Monaco of Portugal and it is easy to see why. These towns are on the beautiful coast, reminds me of California’s rocky coastal areas, with big waves against the rocks. There are very fancy hotels, resorts, casinos, and palatial estates/mansions.
We wanted to have lunch on a deck over the ocean. Checking the guidebook wasn’t very helpful but it had a suggestion that turned out to be a British Restaurant, no deck, very stuffy, very formal, and clearly not where we wanted to be. We left and found a place on our own that turned out to be perfect. We overlooked some of the most spectacular scenery. We ordered salad and pizza. Our waiter suggested that we share some steamed clams to start with. They were exceptional – those tiny little clams I have only seen in Europe that are so sweet – very unlike ours.
We drove around a big loop that included this incredible coastal area and then went up through the mountains ending in Sentra. According to the guidebook Lord Byron declared Sentra to be the most beautiful spot in the known world. It was very nice but I think it was probably in a lot better shape when Lord Byron was there. At this point it is mostly in a glorious state of decay. We toured another royal palace there. There is a Moorish castle on a high hill over the town which took some effort to find. Unfortunately we didn’t find it until after closing time. It appears to be a completely intact castle including ramparts. We may visit it when we leave this area on Saturday.
We’ve now returned to the hotel and checked into our rooms which are lovely. The only drawback is that it seems the “Pousadas” of Portugal are a little out of date. No in room internet access and you must pay 5 Euros an hour for the one hotel computer with internet that guests can use. I give up. I am going to copy the blog texts I’ve been doing onto a thumb drive and load them in the am. I will try to post some pictures but it may take too long to do this but I am going to try.