Living in Lisbon October

Well this has been a long time coming. Two years of living in Lisbon and so I thought I’d try doing a monthly blog post on what I’ve been up to. A news letter of sorts. Let’s see if it’s popular? If it is I will continue with it, if not this maybe the only one! LOL !!!!

This post will be a bit of a lengthy one just to catch-up on the last two years.

So what’s been going on since I left the UK? 

We became grandparents again to our beautiful granddaughter Lourdes. Is it hard living away from our children and grandchildren [and friends]? The answer is yes of course, it’s never easy not having regular face to face time with the people we love. For us it was made slightly easier because our children had all moved abroad before we had. I also think maybe all of the lockdowns we endured before helped to acclimatise us to it slightly. Plus we have travelled back and forth to see them and they have been here to see us. Video calls make life so much easier too.

We moved to the beautiful coastal area of Cascais & it is stunning. Only 18 minutes by car into central Lisbon &15 minutes into the Sintra mountains. I swear if someone said this place is what heaven looks like, I’d believe them. Sandy beaches, warm climate, great food, wonderful people, amazing markets and Architecture. It has it all.

What about the Language? Oh my! For me it’s still very much a working progress. I thought that I'd easily pick it up, how wrong can you be! I have quite a big hearing loss, about 40% deafness as I have a pituitary tumour. I’ve had to have many MRIs which in the early days I didn’t realise the importance of using the ear protection, in turn, this has caused the problem with my hearing!! So on top of being at an age when new skills aren’t that easy, trying to listen to a new Foreign language with this added disadvantage is proving to be super tricky, also the Portuguese speak extremely quickly and drop lots of letters and added to the fact that words are pronounced differently when they are male or female all adds to my frustration!! But I will keep trying, last night we were at the Theatre and I heard two ladies speaking about the fact that tomorrow [today] was going to be raining all day, they were speaking Portuguese, I was very proud of myself for eavesdropping and understanding a little bit of the conversation!! 

If there’s anything you’d like to know more about in next months post, please do ask on either my instagram or FB. 

So what have we been up to in October ?

Restaurants 

Spot:~ I love this place. We have been only once before and I had the most incredible lobster spaghetti. I’d been trying to convince my husband to go back ever since. Anyway, this month was the month. On the coast of Guincho in an old fort that is now a beautiful hotel sits this delightful restaurant {there is also a Michelin star restaurant in the hotel} SPOT has a no book policy so you just have to turn up and try your luck, this is what we did on the first Sunday of the month and got lucky!!  €€€

We went back to Entreposto as this place is a favourite of ours. Not fancy but just great steaks, delicious sides, cosy setting, and fab service, all at a reasonable price. €€

Soi is another fab find. On the square opposite TIME OUT market, Soi is a fab place for Asian fusion style dining. We have returned here at least four times since living here and honestly it isn’t often that we go back to places frequently because there’s such a vast variety of restaurants here.  €€

Lugar Da Barra is a fab little find on the ocean front in an area called Torre, between Carcavelos and Oeiras. We had eaten here once before. It’s causal dining, from the road it looks like a train carriage and actually does on  the inside, but both times we’ve eaten on the terrace with our pooches. The food is nice, very reasonably priced and they’re super dog friendly. €

BBB is a great little sandwich shop in the area of Santos. The sandwiches are good, the Patata’s Bravas are delicious. Its a tiny little place & service is good. I’m guessing in peak times it gets super busy.  €€€

Jncq asia Another big favourite of ours. R booked this last night as a treat, we had tickets to see Alan Carr at the Tivoli Theatre {more about that later} I’m not going to pretend this place is cheap or even reasonable, its expensive, but as a treat it’s OH SO GOOD. I’ve read on trip advisor people have found the service to be poor but we have been here on quite a few occasions and only found the service top notch. For a more reasonably priced experience try out their lunch time special or weekend dim sum brunch specials, both just under 40 euros per person €€€€€€

Places we’ve been :-

Bordalo II exhibition if you are in Lisbon between now and December and like street/urban art check out Bordalo Evilution exhibition. It’s a really great free exhibition, with lots of thought provoking art all made from garbage.

Santos - We spent a lovely few hours wandering around one of my favourite areas. I love santos, it has such a cool coffee cafe vibe going on, also BBB resides here. Lots of interesting buildings to look at, a couple of museums to check out and some cool street art. Plus you can take the tram straight into Estrella afterwards.

Oeiras Marina - Quite by chance we caught an air show here a couple of weekend ago The hubby had been watching the footie, then suggested we take the dogs for a walk to this Marina. It's a fab little marina with great places to eat or just sit and grab a coffee or a beer and watch the world go by, but we got even better with an air display going on.

Alan Carr, chatty man came to Lisbon last night & he was hilarious. In fact it’s not like either of us are his biggest fans but when you’re an expat you’ve got to take any British entertainment when you can! He was so entertaining, if he’s coming to a theatre near you, honestly you have to go and see him, so funny that we were both belly laughing the whole show. 

Things that have happened

I went out for my regular morning walk and noticed as I approached the beach people were all standing looking in one direction out into the ocean. As i stood and watched a pod of dolphins were playing, they stayed for at least forty minutes while we all watched. It was an incredible experience, one that will always stay with me. 

Ironman Cascais, full of these super human people, running, swimming and cycling to epic proportions. I felt very honoured to be cheering them on and soaking up the incredible atmosphere!

Beach tennis tournament, i watched from the terrace of The Alabatroz hotel unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best for this. 

The Bombeiros parade again one Sunday morning I was walking by the casino gardens in Estoril to see a parade with the firemen and women along with musical instruments.

Cascais to Lisbon Marathon again it felt an honour to be in the crowd cheering them on from the sidelines.

The weather has been very wet, in fact the wettest period of the last 24 months of our living here, but fortunately it rarely lasts for very long and although it’s a shame for any tourists that are here, when you live somewhere it’s quite nice to have seasonal changes. 

Jelly fish are real !!!!!!!!!

Padel, I’m playing three times a week minimum some times four, five has been known, its addictive!! I’m really enjoying the games and my weekly lesson.

Please do head back to instagram or Facebook and let me know what you think x