9th July

Lisbon Sunny temp 27c

As we left Barcelona the Captain gave his usual announcement about how far we have to travel to the next port etc and also the weather forecast for last night and today. He warned us that the wind was going to increase and we should expect some movement of the ship. He was right as the evening progressed and we turned out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic the movement started. We had forgotten that we are on a ship after the smooth seas of the Med. When we woke this morning we were already in the approaches to Lisbon which is in the River Tagus. The sail in is good because you go past quite a lot of the city before getting to the dock. One of the first sights to greet us was the 25^th of April Bridge. It is named for the date in 1974 when a bloodless revolution restored democracy by overthrowing the regime of Antonio Salazar. The bridge is similar to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Today we chose a tour of Sintra & Cascals. Our tour started with a drive along the coastline to the small fishing village of Cascals. Around this time of the year there are school outings to the beach and along the way we saw a lot. The beaches were crowded. In Cascals we had time to stroll around the narrow streets and have a coffee with a Portuguese treat, a custard tart. We also bought 2 colourful table mats. We then drove more into the countryside, up a scenic road to Sintra which is set high up in the mountains. It is a delightful town with many narrow picturesque streets and Pena Palace, a national monument famous for its fascinating 19^th century Romantic architecture. From the central square you can look up to 8^th century Castle of the Moors fortress. Another good tour. After dinner Bev & Betty decided to go to see the movie “Enough Said” while Ian and I went to see a comedy juggler “John Nations” . Having seen a number of comedians lately we decided to sit near the back so that we could leave if he was not that good. We stayed until the end. He was fantastic, he did lots of hard juggling made even harder by the movement of the ship and he finished off by riding a 2 meter high unicycle on the stage while still juggling. At 9pm I went to the Princess Theatre to watch the Netherlands v Argentina World Cup match. I stayed until halftime and left because I was falling asleep, not because it was a boring match, but because I was tired.

 Our new Motorhome chassis has arrived at Paradise Motorhomes