So some friends I met in Lisbon and I went to Sara’s home (she calls it a village) in Palmela. It is about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon by bus. We had to take the subway to the Oriente Station and take a bus to her home town.

This town is very quaint. The fresh air in the “campo” was refreshingly different from the air in Lisbon. Sara said that the reason she was tired all the time when she first moved to Lisbon was because of the air quality. She was used to the fresh mountain air here in Palmela.

So we made it to Sara’s house after a short walk from the bus station. We planned on going to the beach in Setúbal, which is a beach town with a lot of potential for urban development close to Palmela. After touring the town, I can see a huge potential upside for Setúbal if they can attract some tourism dollars.

The view from Sara’s house is quite nice. You can see all the way to Lisbon from her house and at night you can see the Ponte 25 de Abril (April 25th Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge’s twin sister).

About this time this sun came out. It was around 2PM. We went to the beach with Sara’s brother Miguel and his girlfriend. We all piled into his car and drove off to Setúbal from Palmela. I couldn’t tell you how to get there because we took many winding cobblestone streets up and down many hills. The car was manual transmission and I kept thinking that if I lived here I would probably have to get my clutch replaced every year.

The water was freezing cold! But I absolutely had to go in. I basically started from my beach towel and worked up a full sprint towards the ocean. It’s the only way. Miguel’s girlfriend actually did it the painful way and went in inch by inch. After swimming around for 5 minutes I was feeling pins and needles all over my body. The water was so salty that I was able to float no problem. Way different from Miami Beach!

So we spent a few hours on the amazing beach in Setúbal, then got back into Miguel’s car and headed up the mountain to visit the monastery and see the awesome views.

In this picture you can see the beach that we were just at and the curvature of the earth. Once again, pictures do it no justice, but I have to take the pictures anyway.

After visiting the mountains above Setúbal, we headed back to Palmela to visit the castle, which is also atop a mountain. The average elevation for this blog post is for sure way above sea level.

The Castelo de Palmela is a very strategic point militarily for Portugal. From here you can see the ships coming in from the sea as well as Lisbon. This allowed the Portuguese to relay messages from the bay down below to the capital on the other side of the mountain.

There’s even a play area for kids on top of this castle!

From the top of this battlement you can see all of Lisbon and the sea on the other side.

You have to go into this dungeon area up another steep flight of stairs to get to the very top. Everything is cut from the living rock and is quite worn from the centuries of wind, rain, and people.

With the wind whipping us we stood atop the castle and saw this amazing view.

My good friend Nils took this picture of me sitting here overlooking the castle walls. This is has been an amazing trip to Palmela and Setúbal. I hope you have enjoyed these photos and thanks for sharing in the memories. Muito Obrigado pra todos Palmela e Setúbal!