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Another beautiful day in Cascais; it started out chilly with a stiff breeze, but has warmed nicely with a cooling breeze. The crew is hanging off the rigging like so many dangling participles and the students are deep in their texts and papers. Pasta Alfredo and tabouli for lunch means I have a few minutes to blog.
Our trip to Lagos began with a spring break dance to the Beach Boys as the sun rose over Lisbon and we waited for our bus. Cruising in style, we had a full size coach and driver. In attendance were the good doctor and Silvana to keep us informed of passing sites of interest. We stopped for a tour of the church of Guadalupe and a look a one of the local truck stops. I tried to call my girlfriend, who is a trucker, and tell her that I'd flown to England to catch a sailing vessel to meet a bus to take me to a truck-stop in Portugal for an espresso. Excellent irony.
We arrived in Lagos in about three hours, mostly highway driving. It's a lovely old beach town with winding streets, castles and history. We had a fine tour guide to walk us around the towers, walls and waterways. We each doubled up for a room, my roomie was Gina, the deck hand. She and I are about the same age, but she's got more sail time than me, for sure. Our favourite feature of our room was the bath; I took two and Gina took three; and we weren't there 24 hours!
The Reis restaurant served our lunch and dinner. During our lunch, Silvi suggested I order the baccalau (sp)- a classic meal of eggs and codfish served with bright greens (verde) w/ a vinegar sauce. The idea is to mix the two together so one compliments the other. It was great! So, being me, I'm looking over the menu for dinner and come across another word I don't know-cataplana. This is a copper cooking vessel like a clam shell and into it the cook places monkfish, shrimp, tiny clams, potatoes, tomatoes, cilantro and parsley. The owner found out I was the cook and allowed me to order one for dinner. Once we had finished our excursion for the afternoon, including a meeting with the mayor of Lagos, there was only an hour before dinner. So, I found a Western Onion and called my girl and checked my e-mail and was on time for dinner. Gina, on the other hand, was beckoned by the bathtub and was much later. I was taking dibs for the other half of my cataplana when she arrived just before it hit the table, and what a wonderful dish it was! The aroma alone is reason enough to dine in the Algarve.
The next morning we were up and at 'em by 9am. Our tour took us to Cape St. Vincent- the end of the earth- and to the King's fortress at Sagres, very impressive and beautiful. I must admit though, the highlight of the trip was a dip in the Atlantic. They found us a perfect beach for a beach party, white sand, clean blue salt water and hot sun. It was splendid. Eve snuck off to do her yoga (chase dragon flies), I wandered the beach after a good swim, Paul helped Paula learn the crawl, Ella was hauled bodily into the sea and Mike pretended to be in Laguna surfing. Exactly what we needed.
Then, a long drive home to the boat, after which Silvi took me grocery shopping in a nice new (for me) store. The crew was grateful to her because then we had food for breakfast. We had eaten so well during our trip, the only thing people really wanted was sleep.
Bye for now, love to you all. HK
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