CASA DO VALLE

Traditionally, Tasca is a Portuguese word for a place to have good, tasty food: fast and with a reasonable price.  If you travel through Portugal, in the small villages, as well as in the bigger cities, you can usually find a tasca . They are characterized by lack of modern decor, they have large, shared tables or lots of small ones close together. The menu is normally reduced to two or three daily options, and is served as a complete menu: soup, main plate, dessert, coffee - and of course the bread and the olives. Tascas usually have a cheap house wine served in a jug.  The best part of the tascas is that normally the food is delicious, honestly Portuguese and cheap.  Service is fast and without frills. Without the drinks, you will find the menu to be between 7 and 10 euros per person. In Sintra we still have a few tascas: Tasca do Manel is the traditional kind, where you can sit together with the mayor and the carriage drivers: anyone wanting to eat well quickly. Tasca do Xico

There are plenty of music festivals in the summer in the region - from Classical to Jazz to Rock. Here is a  list of  some of them with short information  of  performers, venues and prices.  All are doable from Casa do Valle and Casa da Vista.  Also, there are lots of individual concerts through the year, in Sintra and in Lisbon. Estoril Jazz is the first of them - it started today!  In the Casino Estoril, for two consecutive weekends, you can listen to musicians such as Ambrose Akinmusire, Roberta Gambarini and Scott Hamilton.  Tickets for individual concerts are 20-25 euros.  For more information, see their site  http://www.projazz.pt/artigo.aspx?lang=pt&id_object=1610 . And a sample of Roberta Gambarini  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1teDm7lLFw&feature=related . The weekend after Estoril Jazz Lisbon rocks with Rock in Rio music festival, at the Bela Vista Park.  These concerts are mainly outside, though there are inside stages with Djs as well. 25th and 26th of May