Today is Portugal’s National Day. Celebrated to commemorate the life and times of the great poet Luis de Camoes. He wrote the epic poem, the Lusiadas, which celebrates Portugal’s successes and history, especially maritime. It was published in 1572 and runs to 8816 lines of verse. Certainly harder to memorise than “My Country” by MacKellar.
Diomedea remains in Cascais (pron. Cash Case - So called because you need such a thing to live here we have decided) whilst getting her oil leak sorted. We have taken the opportunity to ride our bikes up to Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe and a very stunning piece of geography. Also we have sampled live Fado music at the very excellent “Cascais em Fado” restaurant (fish and pumpkin soup, beef from the Azores islands, salmon, chocolate mousse cake- yum). Fado, from the 19th century, is melancholic, mournful, longing music about life on the sea and of poor people, done to a formulaic structure with classic and Portuguese guitars. Acceptable for an hour or so.
Cascais, primarily a fishing village, became popular with the wealthy when King Carlos 1 frequented the area as part of his wide ranging nautical interests. He was a keen oceanographer commissioning rather nice motor yachts to do deep water studies. Easily achieved here as the Setubal and Lisbon trenches are up to 1200m deep and only a few miles away. All sorts of weird fish life were found and can be seen in the Museo de Mar. He and his son were assassinated by republicans in 1908. The monarchy only survived a further 2 years after the deaths.