Lisbon's Atlantic coast — cataplana, percebes, Guincho beach, and the fishing village that became Portugal's most elegant resort town
Cascais sits at the mouth of the Tagus estuary where it meets the Atlantic, 30km west of Lisbon — a former fishing village that became the summer court of the Portuguese royal family in the late 19th century and has been Portugal's most desirable coastal resort ever since. The old fishing quarter (Vila dos Pescadores) still launches a working fleet each morning, and the daily fish market in the town square remains the centre of food life in a way that has survived the town's transformation into a wealthy commuter suburb and tourist town. The cataplana — Portugal's copper clam-shaped cooking v…
Cascais has been a fishing settlement since Roman times (there is a significant Roman fish-salting factory, a cetaria, under the town centre — one of the largest in Portugal). The royal summer residence began with King Luís I, who converted an old fortress into the Cidadela summer palace in the 1870s; the royal court moved here from Sintra every summer until the fall of the monarchy in 1910. King Carlos I was an accomplished oceanographer who conducted research cruises from Cascais — the Museum of the Sea is named after him. The town's elegant Parque Marechal Carmona and the neoclassical buil…