On Sunday, we were in Lisbon and went on an excursion called Palaces and Cascais outside of the city. It began with a visit to the palace of Queluz. This palace was transformed by Queen Maria I into a spectacular residence. Clearly, she was imitating the style of Versailles. The result is a Portuguese manor with French decoration. I thought it was one of the nicest relatively small palaces that I've seen. It also had nice gardens. I took loads of photos and posted a few below. (It's not easy on this trip.)

Our next stop was Sintra--an old village nestled in tree-clad hills. Another royal palace was located there that is one of the oldest buildings in Portugal. In addition to the palace, we had a few minutes to look at the local shops, and we wished that we had longer.

Our final stop was at Cascais, which was by a beautiful bay. We also had only a relatively short stop at this coastal resort, looking at the nice beaches and the nearby houses and shops. Again, more time would have been nice. The wavy tiled streets were particularly interesting.

Our trip back to the ship was all along the coast where we continued to see a number of beaches that we teeming with people.

We had a nice dinner with the Sonksens. Gail had duck a l'orange and I had prime rib. (I had to send mine back because it was overdone, but the second time around it was excellent.). For dessert I had a warm brioche and panettone pudding, which was like a fancy bread pudding, and it was quite good.

After dinner we went to the Horizon Lounge because they were doing Beatles night. What can I say? I think they "murdered" the songs. While we care little about the entertainment on these cruises, I am still amazed at the poor quality of the singers. We danced to a couple of songs before calling it a night.

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Eugene


Didn't realize who was in the mirror.



Faux marble in the Queluz Palace



Wavy street in Cascais