At Home, part 20

On the third day we finally got some sunny weather, so we took the car and started for our coastal destinations. There were three towns to see—Sintra, in the hills, where there were palaces and castles to visit; Cascais, a beach town; and Estoril, a famous resort. The route to Sintra took us onto some poorly marked roads, and we were worried about getting lost till we saw a huge bus ahead of us, slowly navigating the narrow way. “Follow the tourist bus,” said Mike, laughing. “They have to be going where we’re going!”

Sintra, when we found it, had a lovely central plaza, but our main destination was the royal palace. It had a massive gate, a multicolored paint job, and a somewhat shabby look. Portuguese royalty had fallen on hard times, and the palace was not well kept up. The rooms were scantily furnished. But the views were spectacular over the hills below, and the palace had a warm and cozy feel that was very different from the grandiose Bourbon palaces of Spain.

Then we were off to the Moor’s Castle, which, our guidebook told us, was an inspiration for the poets Byron and Shelley. Not so much a castle now as the ruin of one, it was worth seeing, according to the book.

We found a turnoff for the castle on a small, winding road, and we crunched into a gravel parking lot. The trees and bushes at its perimeter were already green—though it was early March, the west coast weather was temperate, and the breezes were warm. As we got out of the car we heard a haunting melody being played on a recorder, and the music drew us down the path toward the castle.

Before we knew it, we were in a chapel of green, with dappled sunlight reaching us through the new leaves. There were two or three other people coming our way along the path, but everyone was quiet because of the lovely music. We walked silently till we passed the musician, a white-haired man who had certainly found the perfect accompaniment for the magical place. Dark gray ruined walls started to appear before us, covered with green vines. Not a bad inspiration for a romantic poet, I thought.

The music was always with us as we circled the ruined castle, now nearly reclaimed by the greenery all around it. Set atop a hill, it had a lovely view of the hilly forest below; people and cities seemed like distant memories. Here’s the serendipity of travel, I thought.

We thanked and paid the piper as we left, filled with gratitude for the unforgettable experience.

We went downhill to the coast to find Cascais, a little fishing village that had become a summer resort. It was warm enough for the girls to take off their shoes and play on the sandy beach, where an upturned boat made an acceptable jungle gym. “It’s not this warm in Madrid!” Julie said, dancing back and forth where the surf met the beach, daring to stick a toe in the water.

Most of the shops in Cascais were closed, but we found a pizza place for lunch and an ice cream shop for dessert. Then we went south to Estoril, a more elegant resort with a casino. This part of Portugal was a longtime tax haven for European nobility, who could stretch their financial reserves by enjoying the relatively low cost of living. And Estoril, though somewhat down at the heel, still looked beautiful, with wide green lawns and masses of colorful tulips surrounding the big houses near the water.

“Can we go to a shopping center now?” Julie asked. Two of her friends, Rosanne Kruger and Natalie Scarritt, had begged her to bring them some guarana soda from Portugal. Both had lived in Brazil, where the stuff was as popular as Coke, and they knew it could be bought in Portugal.

“Why not?” I said. We hit the highway and found a big concrete superstore, and we initiated our practice of visiting grocery stores wherever we went. Just as I had been amazed by the aisles of olive oil and canned fish in my local Hipercor, I saw that the types of products carried and the amount of space they commanded told a lot about the local lifestyle. Though the Portuguese store wasn’t very different from a Spanish one, it certainly did carry a lot of patés, as well as many tropical products that must have come from Brazil. There were more American items than I usually saw in Spain, such as Kellogg’s cereals and Nabisco cookies. “I see the guarana!” Lisa said, pointing to some orange-colored soda in two-liter bottles. We bought a dozen and tossed them into the trunk for Rosanne and Natalie.

We got on the road back toward the Spanish border the next day, and as noon approached I started to scan the roadside for an appropriate place for lunch. Suddenly, up ahead on the right, I saw a sign—Casa dos Frangos (House of Chickens). Kid-friendly food! I thought. “Who would like roast chicken for lunch?” I asked, swiveling toward the backseat. “Me! Me!” came the reply. So I directed Mike to turn off the highway at the restaurant.

Julie emerged from the car glowering. “Do you think they have anything else besides . . . chicken?” she asked gloomily.

My face got hot. “What’s wrong with chicken?” I asked. “You love chicken! Who was that in the backseat saying ‘Me! Me!’?”

“That,” Julie huffed, “was Lisa.”

My big triumph now negated, we slumped into the Casa dos Frangos. “You can have bread and french fries, I guess, if you won’t eat chicken,” I told Julie. So she ate that while we tucked into our nice roast frangos.

I was going to make another attempt at getting the kids’ passports stamped on the way into Spain. Friends had told me there was a little office at the border crossing; even if the booths were unmanned, as they had been on our last return from Portugal, someone should be in that office who could do the stamping. So as we neared the border I pulled out the passports again and opened them up.

“Oh, my God!” I said to Mike, looking at the passports. “Don’t stop!”

“Huh?” he said, slowing down.

“We can’t show these passports to anyone! They expired last week!” Mike’s eyes widened, and he hit the gas and changed lanes to the left.

We sped on through the empty booths. “I’ll have to take the kids down to the Embassy and get them renewed,” I grumbled, starting to breathe a little easier.

“I did mine there last month,” Mike said. “It was much simpler than trying to get it done at home.”

“Well, that will be a first,” I said.