We were told by our tour leader that we'd not be making a city tour of
Lisbon as originally scheduled but would be brought to see another
sightseeing spot, the Cabo da roca, some 42 km southwest of Lisbon
On our way there, we passed by this shopping mall with a slightly twisted shoe sole like roof.
My first glimpse of our destination.from the coach window
The light tower at Cabo da roca,(Cape of the Rock), a really windy spot. My cap nearly got blown off and I had to keep my hands on it almost all the time.
The Light Tower from the distance.
The water there was really clear. It's the water of the Atlantic ocean.
The path close to the sheer cliff was just grit.
The carboniferous rock looked very weathered indeed, the result of wind and rain erosion..
Nothing grows there but a kind of rhizome-like mat forming cactus plant called Hottentot fig, ice plant, highway ice plant or pigface.
In
the distance, I could see a monument at the base of which is inscribed
part of the words of a poem by a Portuguese poet Luís Vaz de Camões in his epic fantastic epic poem Os Lusiadas: " Aqui, onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa.... ("Here,
where the land ends and the sea begins...]) because it's the westernmost point.of the European continental landmass. According to an article in Wikipedia, the poem is "written in Homeric fashion," about the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries and is treated by the Portuguese as their own version of the Roman poet Virgil's Aeneid or the Greek epic poet Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The poem was first published in 1572, three years after he returned from a voyage to the the West Indies.
The same monument from the southside
As far as the eyes can see, it's just sea and sky.
It's that rock on the further end of this photograph which marks the westernmost tip of Europe!
I zoomed in to get a closer look of that famous striated rock
Below I could see the tips of waves which probably originated from somewhere close to North America
The sea is really blue.
A close up of that aggressive plant, originally brought by the residents here from the Cape region of South Africa as a kind of ground cover
but it has now completely overrun the entire area. It's a rough plant
which can withstand strong winds, dry weather and grows all year
round. Its sour fruit, a favourite of rodents, is sometimes used for making tart jams..
I went over the further end of the tourist spot and found that there are further coves to its south, marked by a number of sea caves.
A rock standing out proudly, braving the winds and waves
Zooming in on the sea caves.
.Fighting for space with the aggressive pigface are some white rushes with hairlike leaves
The flora and fauna of this promontory in the Sintra Massif of which the Cape of Rock forms part.
Lovers wanting to leave their mark at the westernmost point of West Europe. But here, at least, they drew something meaningful.
My parting look at that strangely bleak and yet beautiful spot
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