Route of writers in Cascais
«Cinco galinhas e meia
deve o Senhor de Cascais;
e a meia vinha cheia
de apetite para as mais»
“Five and a half chickens
owes the Lord of Cascais
and the half came full
of appetite for more.”
This is how Luís Vaz de Camões mocked D. António de Castro, 4º Count of Monsanto, for waiting for the stuffed chicken that were promised to him in exchange for a couplet, immortalising in epigram the name of the village which he had already been through in 1570, on board of Santa Clara’s vessel.
The region would then be visited by several other poets and writers, especially from the end of the 19th- century, when the village transformed itself into the capital of leisure in Portugal, during the period of the year dedicated to sea bathing. None of these men and women were indifferent to it, choosing Cascais for holidays, to live or even as a place of exile.