023 - Cabo da Roca - Portugal
In this new article, we continue our adventure from our previous location - >Lisbon, at night. This time we decided to head back north towards Spain/Galicia (to close the circle) but first, we wanted to step in the westernmost point of continental Europe: Cabo da Roca. Let's discover!
023.1 To be honest, we did not know what to expect when leaving Lisbon for the westernmost point of continental Europe. I was hoping for some kind of monument, maybe a bunch of little stores to sell merchandise and maybe a ruin or something like that.
023.2 Yet as we arrived, the parking lot was filled with cars and buses and beyond that, quite a number of tourists from all continents, all happy to be here and take in the view and the sun.
023.3 Here where the land stops and the ocean starts. Obvious message, but what about those towers? Honestly, I saw no such building here, except maybe in Sintra, or it could be another town that is much closer.
023.4 I love this image even if it is not wow or even iconic. It is so non-iconic that in 20 years I probably would not be sure if it was taken close to Nazare, or somewhere on the coast of Galicia or even France… But I love how almost seamless is the transition between the sea and the sky (we are water) and also how weird is the terrain, with a little path to cross it.
023.5 And then this shot of this couple (I think it is the same as in the previous picture, but they are barely visible) that looks like a scene from a Star Wars movie 😀.
023.6 And just how dangerous is it exactly to walk along the coast? Well, why don’t you read the legend of Cabo da Roca, at the end of this article, that will give an idea. Meanwhile let’s admire what the nature gives us today!
023.7 I have to agree that this place can really be dangerous, even today. It is beautiful, but it looks like no boat can come too close without risking too much.
023.8 Speaking of dangers for boats, Cabo da Roca has a lighthouse that has been here since the XVIII-th century and before that, there was another lighthouse and probably there were others going back to antiquity.
023.9 I don’t think that the lighthouse can be visited, and I would really wish to visit an active one and maybe even stay there for a few nights and catch a ghost ship with the light beam.
023.10 Initially, for this article I only wanted to make some cliffs in a low poly type art and the main monument. But after making Sintra and Lisbon, I learned so much and got so fast in working in Blender (3d software) that I wanted to try more. So I also made the lighthouse (but I must say that I stood for more than an hour just for the monument). Luckily I had quite a few photos about the lighthouse (two even chosen for this article) and I found more on the internet. This building I made it to be symmetrical and I left out some other parts (to the left) plus the whole antenna. I kept it simple and also opened (without the wall) to give it a timeless look. I used quite a lot of 3D elements from other projects, and I hope that one day I will have a catalogue of elements that I can “carry-over” to other works to speed-up the process.
023.11 You might have seen sprinkles of yellow in all of the images of this article. Those are all flowers and most of them (maybe 80% if not more) are just one plant: Carpobrotus Edulis. This plant was brought to Portugal and put on the shores to make it (the shore) more beautiful but fast, it overgrown and locals are not happy at all.
023.12 Not much else is to be seen here at Cabo da Roca but the ocean and the safety of staying on the land and not stranded on that rock.
Cabo da Roca can be reached either by car or by bus. There are terminus stations in Cascais (bus 403) and Sintra and they depart every 30 minutes so no rush (where I live in France, my bus is every hour, so if I miss it, I just walk 40-45 minutes to get home. So 30 minutes of waiting is not that bad, especially here where the distance is quite big.
There is no snackbar (at least not in 2017) and no shops so no magnets (pick one from Lisbon/Cascais or Sintra).
Because we seem to forget to buy magnets, we bought a Polaroid digital pocket camera a while ago, so we use it on every trip that we make and then we take out the photo (on site) and then put it on a cardboard and then on magnets (this we do back at home). I will make an article comparing Fujifilm, Polaroid and Kodak, taking photos and having them printed out instantly, on site.
Cabo da Roca seems crowded but I saw pictures on the internet with people sitting alone so maybe we were here when a bus arrived or something… Anyway we could not take a photo next to the monument but we stood a bit more far and then using the zoom lens, we made the background seem more close 🧠(135mm) thus we do have a photo 😀
I hope you enjoyed this rather short article and I hope you will check out other ones too.
Thank you,
MiDe.
Source: https://mundodeviagens.com/cabo-da-roca/
Click here to see the map
023.1 To be honest, we did not know what to expect when leaving Lisbon for the westernmost point of continental Europe. I was hoping for some kind of monument, maybe a bunch of little stores to sell merchandise and maybe a ruin or something like that.
023.2 Yet as we arrived, the parking lot was filled with cars and buses and beyond that, quite a number of tourists from all continents, all happy to be here and take in the view and the sun.
023.3 Here where the land stops and the ocean starts. Obvious message, but what about those towers? Honestly, I saw no such building here, except maybe in Sintra, or it could be another town that is much closer.
023.4 I love this image even if it is not wow or even iconic. It is so non-iconic that in 20 years I probably would not be sure if it was taken close to Nazare, or somewhere on the coast of Galicia or even France… But I love how almost seamless is the transition between the sea and the sky (we are water) and also how weird is the terrain, with a little path to cross it.
023.5 And then this shot of this couple (I think it is the same as in the previous picture, but they are barely visible) that looks like a scene from a Star Wars movie 😀.
023.6 And just how dangerous is it exactly to walk along the coast? Well, why don’t you read the legend of Cabo da Roca, at the end of this article, that will give an idea. Meanwhile let’s admire what the nature gives us today!
023.7 I have to agree that this place can really be dangerous, even today. It is beautiful, but it looks like no boat can come too close without risking too much.
023.8 Speaking of dangers for boats, Cabo da Roca has a lighthouse that has been here since the XVIII-th century and before that, there was another lighthouse and probably there were others going back to antiquity.
023.9 I don’t think that the lighthouse can be visited, and I would really wish to visit an active one and maybe even stay there for a few nights and catch a ghost ship with the light beam.
023.10 Initially, for this article I only wanted to make some cliffs in a low poly type art and the main monument. But after making Sintra and Lisbon, I learned so much and got so fast in working in Blender (3d software) that I wanted to try more. So I also made the lighthouse (but I must say that I stood for more than an hour just for the monument). Luckily I had quite a few photos about the lighthouse (two even chosen for this article) and I found more on the internet. This building I made it to be symmetrical and I left out some other parts (to the left) plus the whole antenna. I kept it simple and also opened (without the wall) to give it a timeless look. I used quite a lot of 3D elements from other projects, and I hope that one day I will have a catalogue of elements that I can “carry-over” to other works to speed-up the process.
023.11 You might have seen sprinkles of yellow in all of the images of this article. Those are all flowers and most of them (maybe 80% if not more) are just one plant: Carpobrotus Edulis. This plant was brought to Portugal and put on the shores to make it (the shore) more beautiful but fast, it overgrown and locals are not happy at all.
023.12 Not much else is to be seen here at Cabo da Roca but the ocean and the safety of staying on the land and not stranded on that rock.
Cabo da Roca can be reached either by car or by bus. There are terminus stations in Cascais (bus 403) and Sintra and they depart every 30 minutes so no rush (where I live in France, my bus is every hour, so if I miss it, I just walk 40-45 minutes to get home. So 30 minutes of waiting is not that bad, especially here where the distance is quite big.
There is no snackbar (at least not in 2017) and no shops so no magnets (pick one from Lisbon/Cascais or Sintra).
Because we seem to forget to buy magnets, we bought a Polaroid digital pocket camera a while ago, so we use it on every trip that we make and then we take out the photo (on site) and then put it on a cardboard and then on magnets (this we do back at home). I will make an article comparing Fujifilm, Polaroid and Kodak, taking photos and having them printed out instantly, on site.
Cabo da Roca seems crowded but I saw pictures on the internet with people sitting alone so maybe we were here when a bus arrived or something… Anyway we could not take a photo next to the monument but we stood a bit more far and then using the zoom lens, we made the background seem more close 🧠(135mm) thus we do have a photo 😀
I hope you enjoyed this rather short article and I hope you will check out other ones too.
Thank you,
MiDe.
Source: https://mundodeviagens.com/cabo-da-roca/
