Sintra - Teachers Immersion, Day 7
Day 7 - June 22, 2024
The prescribed practice is six full day practicing your series each week. One day off (traditionally Saturday), and the moon days every other week.
Day 7 also happened to be the day of the full moon.
The weather here is windy, cloudy, sunny and all around unpredictable. It changes every hour. I really wished I had prepared myself for colder/windier days but this is the part where I learn how to adapt. Luckily, last week I was able to drive my Moped to a shopping mall to buy some warmer clothes. Additionally, I bought warmer clothes because driving on the Moped gets quite chilly and as we know, I was ill-prepared.
On Friday, we had an early day and I drove down south to Cascais. Cascais located at the south-western end of the Lisbon Peninsula, which is bordered to the north by Sintra. My main goal was to check out this highly rated restaurant, Souldough for pizza and to check out my first beach of this trip. We visited Praia da Rainha and it was a very small beach and filled with tourists - this makes sense…being a Friday night. There are many beaches along this coast and I hope to visit the rest of Cascais and walk/run along this continuous beachfront promenade that connects Cascais to Estoril. There is also a seafood market/restaurant that I must visit - I might just save this trip with Jay when he gets here :)
Souldough was not great to be honest. Sadly I have not eaten anything that has BLOWN my mind away. There are many more restaurants on my list to try so I haven’t given up hope just yet.
My drive home from Cascais was pretty frightening. I typically dislike driving my Vespa or Motorcycle during windy conditions back at home and even moreso in unfamiliar territory. The Moped I have it an electronic scooter as well so its extremely light. I felt like I was going to get blown away with the wind. This has dampened my excitement to drive it around and makes me sad as I thought I was going to be able to have the freedom to explore endlessly with this moped. The closer you get to the Western Coast of Sintra, sadly the windier it gets.
On Saturday, I couldn’t sleep in and tried to find an easy route to jog/run. I got lost. But I have mapped out an easy run that intersects through the main centre and down towards a beautiful park, Parque da Liberdade. Since I was in the centre, I picked up some pastries from this popular joint, Casa Piriquita. I got to try a Travesseiro and of course picked up more pastel de nata. I also tried a Queijadas earlier in the week which I did not love. I believe they originated from Sintra specifically and was used as a form of payment for land, animals etc instead of money. I am a dessert/pastry snob so I should probably just stick to what I know I like lol.
This day was the nicest day we’ve had so far. I took an uber (heck no I was not going to drive there myself) with another classmate to Praiha da Ursa. There was a faily simple hike down ~ 30 minutes and the views en route were breathtaking! Once we got down, we tried to enjoy the sunshine but the wind made it unendurable. We hiked back up and made our way to Cabo de Roca - which is the most Western point of Europe! 0/10 would not recommend! Haha. I know I sound like a big baby, but it was so darn windy at the tip of the continent! We were physically pushed by the wind and slapped around with sand and gravel in between the cobblestones!
Lunch time was probably my favourite time. I can’t recall the name of the restaurant but it was my first glass of wine all week. It was a lovely time to chat and get to know some of the girls at this immersion. We made our way to Praia do Mogoito and welcomed the Summer Solstice and the full moon with a very make-shift Cacao Ceremony.
It was a long day but lovely overall.
