Hold the fort

Cascais, Wednesday 28 October

Finished The Book Thief. A great poolside read. Onto the next.

Cascais is as lovely to stay in as it is to visit. The pool remains very quiet which I love. Yesterday the entire highlight of my day was watching a tribal fight over the swimming pool and its use as a bird bath. Blonde seagulls and speckled ones dive bombed each other and squawked like crying babies as they fought for dominance. It was pretty ugly there for a bit. The blondes won and then castigated the losers by beating their wings on the water in a chorus of joyful splashing. I felt a bit like David Attenborough.

Today the clouds have arrived. Which is probably a good thing to get me out of the sun but there isn’t that much to do here. I toyed with a train ride further down the line to Carcavelas which is where I was also going to stay due to its lovely beaches (no accommodation available there) but I seem to have swung into ease up mode and I don’t know that I want to shake myself out of it.

Instead I went kind of went exploring. I really didn’t have to go too far.

A short walk up the coastline is the local landmark the ‘Boca Inferno – Mouth of the Inferno’. The mouth is simply natural erosion in coastal stone that because of its shape enables enormous splashing as the waves come in. I am told that in foul weather the waves can rise up the 20 or so metres from the rocks and flood the street from this one point. Which is a shame…it is a beautiful street and possibly the reason the mansions lining part of it have six foot high iron fences. Not so impressive when I saw it, although the line fishers did seem precariously positioned. I do though love its name. Onwards up the coast is a reserve.

Just down the road from where I am staying is one of many Forts established in the 15th and 16th centuries along this coastline to respond to intruders. They are made from big fat stone bricks and have several unexpected tiny turrets at strategic corners, presumably these were the watch towers...for the little guards. The local Fort, while it looks compact, is actually about the size of a block once you are up close and personal. The few windows it has look like matchsticks compared to the size of the structure. It is so incredibly uplifting to have the historic next to the new. I have always liked that about Europe.

The sun came out again right when I was as far away from the hotel as I could be on the other side of town at the supermarket but it was too late in the day for me to do much about it. The humidity is high anyway and so I needed no excuse to sit my now very curly hair down with the men of the town on the park benches lining the waterfront. Ice cream in hand we all watched three lunatic men and two dogs try to re-float their flash inflatable which they had whizzed onto the sand in what can only be described as a rush of stupidity.

Bad picture day - this interesting looking turret is the best of it.