Another day trip

Today I did another day trip with the same mob I did 2 days ago, this time we went more west, we did go a bit north but not as far as the other day, today we had Sophia as our driver. We had a mixture of nationalities as the other passengers, 2 couples 1 from USA & 1 from Canada, 2 brothers from Spain, and a guy from Mexico, who was a Dive instructor who spoke 4-5 languages and had grown up in Germany.

Our first stop was the Sena national park and after parking the bus, we walked up the road about a km to the Pena National Palace that from about 1820's to 1910's was the Royal Palace, very impressive looking, the first King was German, so a very European mixture of architecture used in the building, internally there is also a lot of African & Indian influence.

Then we went to the town Sintra for lunch, a very old town nearby the palace, I ate at a restaurant that had a set 8.5 euro menu which include Soup, bread, grilled salmon & chips, a beer & fruit salad, the salmon was fantastic, I couldn't do it for that price myself, it was great.

We then drove onto the Roca Cape cliffs, it is suppose to be the western most point of Europe, I am told there is a slight dispute for a point in Spain, there is only 10 metres difference, not sure who wins. I was told that it is the same latitude as New York, very interesting.

We then had a quick stop at the Guincho surf beach, the wind was up and the waves were very choppy, there didn't seem to be much surfing but there were a few wind & kite surfers around.

Our last stop before heading back to Lisbon was the town of Cascais on the coast, that is suppose to be Riviera of Portugal, there were plenty of beaches and people swimming, not as rough here, there were plenty of souvenir shops which I managed to loose a bit of money there, then we hit the road continuing south along the coast before heading inland back to Lisbon, a great day was had by all.

I have been impressed with both day tours, I picked this company because all their tours (3) were full days and cheaper than the other companies, both drivers were very knowledgeable and I gave them a tip which they were surprised to get (which is good). The groups of 8 passengers worked really well and everybody go on. It was a great of seeing places outside of Lisbon that I never would have done myself, I am hoping that i will be able to pick up a similar tour in Porto