Free things to do in Cascais

No better way to start your morning than to learn about the culture of the place you’re in. Enter the Town Museum and learn everything about the birth of Cascais, who used to live here before, and the stories comprised in more than 650 years of history.

After your history lesson, move on to one of the town’s most precious assets: beaches. You get to choose from a score of them, all you have to do is pick one, lay down your towel and hop between sunbathing and bathing in the ocean. If you’re lucky, someone will let you borrow some paddles and a ball.

A walk around the beautiful historic town centre in the post-beach glow will feel great, just ignore the salt and sand covering you. Take advantage of the Cascais WI-FI network to feed your Instagram - just don’t push it with the downloads.

Continue to the Cascais Tide Gauge (or “Marégrafo”; booking required), one of the first observatories of sea tides in Europe, which is still used and allows, for instance, to study the increase in sea levels.

Before moving on, cross the Marechal Carmona Park, one of Cascais’s green lungs, with a duck pond, some peacocks, a large lawn to lay on, and even some woods where you can stroll.

From the park, go along the bike path and, budgeting time for some stops to admire the view, keep walking near the coast until the Boca do Inferno, maybe the finest spot to see the sun falling into the sea at the end of the day.