Costa de Caparica

Five full days and 6 nights in Lisbon seems like the perfect amount of time to get in all of the tourist essentials. Having already seen the city sights, Sintra, Cascais, and Belem, we woke up Saturday morning unsure of how we could spend our last full day in sunny Lisbon. After a bit of research, we decided on Costa de Caparica, a seaside town over the bridge from Lisbon, complete with 6 kilometers of beautiful sandy beach.

We took the metro from Rossio and then a coach bus from the neighborhood of Areeiro to arrive at Costa de Caparica. The bus system is completely out of whack and there is not enough bus for the amount of people trying to get to the beach. Luckily we got seats on the way there and arrived in Costa de Caparica only 30 minutes later. We immediately knew upon arrival that this was the perfect way to end our holiday in Portugal.

The beach here stretched far beyond the eye could see and only the vast blue Atlantic could be seen across the horizon. The water was dotted with swimmers and surfers riding the waves that crashed loudly against the shores and a cool sea breeze kept the hot sun from burning us up. After grabbing our own little patch of sand to lay our towels down on, we immediately took to the water. It was cold, just as it was in Cascais, but it was beautifully clear and the surf was perfect. 

Our day was spent lazily enjoying the perfect weather and watching the surfers ride the waves. We grabbed dinner at a nearby restaurant and had deliciously fresh mackerel and finished just in time to catch this glorious sunset.

Lucky for us, we had an amazing experience at our hostel here in Lisbon. It was small and social, and the people that work there are great resources for finding fun things to do in and around Lisbon, and just in general awesome people. When we arrived back Saturday night, they invited us to join them on the pub crawl free of charge, in celebration of our last night in Lisbon and because we had already participated in one with them a few days ago. Who could say no to that?! Needless to say, we were very tired on our way to the airport the next morning to get to London, but it was so worth it. Obrigada, Portugal!