Estoril and Cascais are adjoining towns with the same local government, a quick commuter train ride from Lisbon. In part I wanted to come because of events here during World War Two.
In a past blog I told of my father’s time in Portugal during those years. ‘Mediterranean 2017’, parts three, four, five and six combine a cruise, the wartime political context and Dad’s experiences:
https://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.com/2017/10/mediterranean-2017-part-three.html
But back to the present. Immediately next to my Cascais hotel this extraordinary mansion - once home of the counts of Castro Guimarães - suggests a much different town than Albufeira.
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And just across the road from the hotel is another house, not as grand, but still the temporary abode of a onetime king.
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For a month in the cataclysmic summer of 1940 the Casa de Santa Maria accommodated the Duke of Windsor, formerly Edward VIII, and his American divorcée wife, who had fled the advancing Germans in France.
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The worrisome couple - they were accused of Nazi sympathies - were put up by a wealthy Portuguese banker who nowadays has a nearby road named after him.
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While there British and German agents kept discreet watch on the couple and eventually Winston Churchill managed to ship them off to the Bahamas where they could cause little harm.
But this was not the only wartime intrigue and in the next post I’ll tell more.
For now, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Cascais and Estoril.
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Optical illusion.
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Onetime grocery store (mercearia).
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Early 20th century tiles replicating an 18th century frieze showing theologians discussing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
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People shots.
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Lust. A 1950s Austin-Healey 100.
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Between saints Peter and Paul, possibly helpful if you’re the praying sort, an evacuation sign, reminder this area was devastated by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami in which tens of thousands died …
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… and along a coast renowned for dangerous waves are other signs ...
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... often ignored.
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Yikes! Oh, it’s condominium advertising.
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Roosters ...
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... one hopeful, in a park backing onto my hotel ...
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… and a return to man and gull.
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Coming up, wartime espionage and what may have been Europe’s best Manhattan cocktail.
