Portugal Photo Journal - Part 1: Settling In & Beach Adventures

The rain has started, which means we've been in for the weekend, sipping tea and other warming refreshments... but even so, I can't seem to find enough time to weave an accurate account of all we are experiencing.  As such, I figure it may be easier to enumerate via photographic evidence...

Most weekends we've tried to do something to explore our local environment.  On this one we biked 7 sunny miles to Guincho beach, which looks squarely out into the Atlantic. We stopped at Boca do Inferno (the mouth of fire), a local attraction.  No fire.  Just waves and such. 

Above Gunicho, the wind was intense. 

Look! Up in the sky!  It's a bird... no a plane... no, it's... a ridiculous amount of kite surfers.  Guincho is world renowned for it's kite surfing, they were out in full force while we were there.  At times, they would launch off of a wave 20 or 30 feet in the air, with a hang time of 10-15 seconds.  Intense!

The view on the bike ride home from Gunicho was great. 

We took an hour and a half journey via train and bus to Ikea in order to make our home a bit more cozy.  As these things go, we were quite laden on the way back. 

Living in Cascias (one of the most expensive areas in Portugal), the prices for most things aren't noticeably less than in the U.S.  An exception to this is food from our local organic farmers market.  This haul was about $15.  We have signed up for a CSA style box with a lovely farming couple, and it's awesome. 

Handmade pizza night at the Nolan pad.  The fig pizza was made with figs from our landlord's farm and was ridiculously tasty.  I'm salivating as I write this, even though we made this weeks ago. 

The view from our apartment continues to inspire.  We have had many lovely sun and moon rises over the Cascais bay.  Doesn't it make you want to come visit us?

After over a month of warm to hot sunny days, the weather has finally started to turn.  I welcome the fall!