Portugal Vacation Part 1: Beach Days & Sintra!

After doing some research and talking to other friends that travel a lot with their toddlers, we decided that Portugal was the perfect place for our vacation this year. I decided that staying in the Lisbon area would be the best way to make the most of our vacation, so I booked the first 2 nights in Cascais, a beautiful beach town, and the next 4 nights in Lisbon city.

After arriving home from China on Friday evening, I was glad to have Saturday at home to catch up and prepare for vacation. We had an early morning flight Sunday and arrived to Lisbon quite early. I booked a driver to pick us up and take us to our hotel - we found him very easily and were off to the hotel quickly. There was a ton of fog so we didn't get to see much until we got to the ocean. The driver took us through Estoril, another beach town with 007 history, on our way to our hotel. We arrived to our hotel- the Grand Real Villa Italia - and dropped our bags off. We provided them with our phone number to call when our room was ready.

We set off to the city center via a beautiful 10-minute walk along the ocean and had some breakfast in the town. S found a new flower pinwheel that she played with the rest of the trip. Just as we were ready to head back, the hotel called to confirm our room was ready. When we arrived, we were delighted to find out we had been upgraded to a large suite. We rested a bit and then headed to the hotel pool - it was gorgeous and relaxing. We splashed around a bit and then headed to the park across the street from the hotel.

The park was great - there was a nice play area and some small animals wandering about. S really enjoyed it!

We then went on a walk before having dinner in the pier area of town. S asked to go to the beach that evening after hearing us talking about it so we went to a very small beach in the town - at first, S was just splashing about a bit. After a few minutes though, she was running in and out of the water and starting to get her dress wet. She actually ended up falling in the water and was completely soaked, but she was having so much fun! This was definitely one of my most fun moments with S. We finally got her out of the water and then headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Monday:
On Monday, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and J went for a run along the ocean. We spent the day at Guincho beach, one of the top beaches in Europe - it was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel and very easy to get to. This was a really fun day - S ran around the sand and into the water with me and J enjoyed the large waves. After lunch on the beach and watching some surfers, we went back to the hotel for S's nap time.

After nap, we went back to the park from Sunday, wandered the city and the local mall, which had a fun play area for S, and then went out to dinner in the town. We were all tired that evening so headed to bed after dinner.

Tuesday:
We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel again and had the same driver from Sunday pick us up and take us to the Sintra area. On the way, we stopped at the Westernmost point on Europe and waved to the US :)

We enjoyed pastries in one of the towns and then headed to Pena Palace - WOW! We took a trolley to the Palace and then visited the Palace grounds. S was a bit disappointed that she couldn't actually lay in the princess beds. This palace is one of the most beautiful places I have been to - I am so glad we took the time to go here.

After Pena, our driver brought us to the apartment we rented in Lisbon city. Details in the next blog post!