Oh My Gosh, We're in Lagos!

First off, Lagos is apparently pronounced like "la-gosh" which explains the silly title I chose!

Leaving Cascais Thursday, we drove through Lisbon and over the Ponte 25 de Abril (the bridge which the cruise ships sail under) and got on the Auto-Estrada do Sul.  The traffic heading north into Lisbon was the longest “Stau” (German word for traffic jam) I think I have ever seen.  It went on for about 15 or more kilometres.  Good thing we were heading south!  The drive after that was pretty easy but the countryside was pretty nondescript:  rolling hills;  some areas desert-like, others covered with cute “bumpy looking” trees that we likened to broccoli stalks; and then the red earth that you see often along the Mediterranean coast.  As we went along, that little sensor fixed to our windshield kept beeping so we racked up bills for the toll roads and road taxes along the way!  Wonder how big that bill is going to be!

We got to Lagos just after 2 pm and were both a bit disappointed in it, or at least what we could see of it.  It is much hillier than I thought it would be.  Also, our accommodation is nowhere near the town or the sea.  To kill time before we could check in, we just drove around and, at one point, I was in the “centro” where the streets were ridiculously narrow, barely wide enough for our car and there were pedestrians to avoid!  It was a bit of a challenge to get out of the there and back to where we would be staying.

Once we checked it, we realized it actually did have a view of the sea but there isn’t much around it of interest as it sits in a residential area - no restaurants or shops nearby.  The rooms were rustic looking (white adobe walls, for example) but large and quite nice.  The challenge was finding somewhere nearby to eat which didn't involve driving.  We found a restaurant on a roundabout about a 20 minute walk away but it was lacked any kind of ambiance but at least the fish was fresh and the prices were good.  Hopefully, Lagos has more to offer than what we saw!

Friday morning, we decided to drive into the "centro" to see what Lagos had to offer.  There was a market along the seafront which was fun to browse through and then we explored the streets in behind.  It turned out to be more charming than our initial impression.  However, it isn't a place that "calls to me" the way Cascais did.  That being said, we managed to find some "treasures" to buy and our lunch on a little side street was just what we wanted.  As I often do, I bought a CD from a street musician whose music was French but also probably from north Africa.  When I get home it will be a lovely memory of my time here.

We decided rather than going out again for dinner that we would buy some food at the Intermarche to have a "picnic" on my balcony.  It is pleasant there, the view is lovely, and we certainly didn't feel like we needed another big dinner.  Besides, when we checked into our rooms, we were given a complimentary bottle of a Portuguese bubbly and we sure weren't going to let that to waste!  So, we bought crackers, nuts, cheeses, almond biscuits and what we thought was butter for our picnic.  Okay, it is very important to know that Levadora Fresca DOES NOT mean "fresh butter".  It is fresh yeast!  What a surprise that was!  However, the crackers, nuts and cheeses more than sufficed our appetites - and the whole almonds in dark chocolate certainly were a wonderful finish off our picnic!  We didn't even miss the butter.  Now, what to do with two little blocks of fresh yeast!

Tomorrow we are planning to see some of the coast but I don't think a boat trip, the recommended way of seeing it, is in our future as the wind is making for some pretty bumpy seas.