Apparently it has not rained in a long time in Portugal, but it sure dumped today. Probably due to the fact that someone leaked that people from Seattle were visiting and they wanted us to feel at home…

We did tour around town a little. We were able to stop and capture a few photos of the old tower by the river

And also the famous war monument. It was pouring so sorry for the bad shots…

Lisbon is where we started to encounter the gypsy crowd who tried to aggressively sell umbrellas and other trinkets to tourists. No thanks, but you have to be prepared here as pickpockets are also plentiful in this town (as we have been warned).

We also stopped by the Jeronimo monastery for a few minutes to admire the design and architecture.

I found the most interesting part to be the tomb of Vasco da Gama – the famous explorer and navigator.

Kind of cool to see some of the famous sites based on people we learned about when we were just kids.

In the afternoon, we headed for the Atlantic coast to escape the rain and cloudy skies. The weather tuned gorgeous.  The coastline scenery and homes along the western coast were quite enviable.

Also was the amazing biking and running trails along the coast. Almost as good as Iceland’s.

We stopped and had a nice lunch in Cascais, a small fishing village.  Nice low cost shopping if you need some low cost port or even a warm sweater to fight off the cool weather. Very friendly environment and getaway from the big city.

The highlight of the day was the village of Sintra in the mountains.  I only wish we had the time to hike up to the top of the mountain to explore the Moorish castle. Can you see it at the top of this pic?  😦

What an amazing place to walk around the steep walkways and explore some of the shops, pubs, wine tasting and craft stores.

Great views and many hidden gems to find and take great shots of the countryside.  The amazing 3 euro glasses of wine in the wine shops made us feel better when we could not spend 2 hours climbing the mountain 🙂