We returned to Lisbon, rented a car at the airport and hit
the road for a trip down to the Algarve. We stopped around midnight at the
Montado Golf to spend the night. In the morning, we continued down to Cape
Sagres, the Southwest tip of Europe. The highways are really empty because
Portuguese can’t afford the extremely expensive tolls. We were advised to take
the “motorways” despite the cost because they are much safer since the other
roads are swarmed with aggressive drivers.
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| Sagres |
In Cape Sagres, we walked around and enjoyed some wonderful
views. We attempted to have lunch at a cafe that sounded perfect for us with
loads of salads and vegetarian options but found that it was closed. We then
proceeded onto the attractions on our itinerary to find they were also closed
because the workers are on strike. One disgruntled tourist wondered if the
fortress workers went on strike when the place was still actively guarding the
coast.
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| Walking along the beach in Selema |
We headed east and stopped at the town of Selema. We stopped
at a convenience store to buy water and the cashier noticed our Rick Steves
booked and pointed to a picture of him with Rick Steves on the wall. Apparently
Selema is a favorite stop of Rick’s. There are supposedly dinosaur prints on
the rocks at the base of the cliff on the beach. Unfortunately for us though,
the high tide prevented us from finding them. Not from trying though – We
climbed on the rocks to try to one-up the tide to no avail.
We continued on to the
Belavista da Luz Hotel, our home for
the duration of our stay in Portugal. They told us they upgraded us to a “sea
view” room since it is our honeymoon (apparently sea-view and pool-view are
interchangeable here but we appreciated the gesture). The room also had a
bottle of champagne with a congratulatory note. The staff there was incredibly
helpful and friendly! At breakfast, they told us to just ask if we want fried
eggs or something so I ordered an egg-white omelet, which totally flabbergasted
the guy. He could not understand the concept of removing part of the egg. After
going back and forth of me trying to describe the process, telling him to
forget it and a whole egg is fine, trying to explain it, telling him its not so
unusual in NY… for about 10 minutes, the guy finally left and returned with a
fried egg-white but would only give it to me if I told him what I do with the
yellow parts of my eggs. I told him I give the yellows to my dog (which is only
true of hard-boiled eggs) or I make
Pasteis de Nata (similar to Pasteis de Belem
– see
Lisbon post). He handed me my eggs but proceeded to tell everyone else
who walked into breakfast that the way people eat their eggs in NY is by giving
the yellow parts to their dogs.
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| "Sea" View |
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| Honeymoon Champagne |
For dinner, I typed into trusty TripAdvisor restaurants Near
Me and sorted by “vegetarian.” We drove to Lagos for the top result and were in
for a delectable surprise. We drove up to an incredible resort called Cascades,
which housed the wonderful
Senses Restaurant. Sitting pretty high up a cliff,
Cascades has a beautiful hotel and an amazing porch, pool, and cabanas
overlooking the Atlantic. The restaurant had a special vegetarian menu and
prepared the food in a special kitchen downstairs. The main kitchen is open and
inviting for guests to come watch their food being prepared. The service was
attentive and professional. When the food came out, we were in heaven. The
chef, it turns out, is a chocolatier trained by a culinary institute in Brugge,
so we had to get the “chocolate experience” dessert – it wasn’t as good as we
expected – IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER!
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| View from Senses Restaurant, Cascade |
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| Senses - Open Kitchen |
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| Praia da Luz |
The next day we walked to the beach in Luz to go tubing.
There was a bit of a wait so they offered us to take a kayak out for free. We
paddled out and looked back at the small city and took in the beautiful scene.
When we returned to shore, we hopped on our “sofa” tube and were attached to a
motor boat and off we went, speeding though and bouncing around the ocean,
squealing and laughing like children and holding on for dear life.
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| Pre-Shabbat Pic! |
Finally, we returned to the hotel for our first Shabbat
dinner alone as husband and wife. We sang ourselves shalom Aleichem and eshet
chayil, made Kiddush and motzei and felt like grown ups. After dinner, we hung
out at the bar and made friends with lots of Brits and Germans and of course,
the bartender, Danny.
On Shabbat, we woke up late (I guess we’ve been lacking
sleep) and headed to the beach. We got a bit too much sun and Josh’s back
turned quite red L.
We enjoyed a picnic lunch on our “sea-view” porch. In the afternoon, we wanted to hike over to
Lagos and end up eventually for a final dinner at our beloved Sense restaurant.
We anticipated a flat hike – more of a walk really over to the next town. We
ended up climbing up over a cliff from Luz to Lagos on a Squaw Peak-type trail
(for you Arizonans) except totally unmarked and lacking people. That we were
nervous that we would end up stranded on a cliff without phones or a way to get
to either town and that the sun would continue to set and the snakes would come
out only added to the adventure. We eventually did end up in Lagos and found
our way back to the wonderful resort with 30 minutes to relax in a cabana
before dinner. (It's too bad there are no pictures from Shabbat because it was some of our most beautiful scenes the trip.)
As one final testament to how accommodating our hotel was,
we asked them for breakfast before we left for the airport at 7am. Expecting a
boxed breakfast, we were quite impressed when the receptionist asked us what
time we wanted breakfast (6:30am) and what hot drinks we’d like (coffee). She
then apologized that the hot breakfast wouldn’t be available at 6:30am but that
someone would set up the cold breakfast and coffee for us. We headed off to the
airport with full stomachs and amazing memories of our honeymoon to Portugal.
Now back to reality.
