Hi All,
We decided to get out of Lisbon and head to the hills of Sintra. It was a crack of dawn start with me negotiating upwards for a later start and Vanessa heading for an earlier start so we met somewhere between on the time. We got out of the metro in central Lisbon and found that the train station was not at all apparent and even once at the entrance the only give away was the flow of people coming out. Not too good for tourists! It was an easy and relatively cheap 45 minute train ride with regular trains which was particularly useful as Vanessa diligently got us out two stops early by misinterpreting the destination name rather than the current station name. Not to matter as 10 minutes later another train picked us up and we were in wonderful leafy Sintra.
The first thing that struck us was the steep, tree covered mountain with an excellent Moorish castle, castelo dos mouros, perched on one of it‘s peaks, the strange and large kitchen chimneys of the palacio national de sintra and it was quiet with just the chirping of birds in the cool early morning. Nothing much opens before 10am so we had the pleasure of walking the streets as if we were the only people in the town and each corner held a new surprise such as the quinta de regaleria, an old gothic mansion with beautiful gardens. The whole area was the summer residence for the Portuguese royalty. We didn’t really have a plan so decided to walk along the road which appeared to head up to the castles on the hill and it took about 3hrs pleasant stroll up the winding road shaded with tree cover until we reached a garden, with ponds filled with goldfish surrounding islands with small castle turrets. We visited it later on the way back down the hill and found that it was designed by king Ferdinand II the artist king of Portugal. Continuing along further we reached the castelo dos mouros and strolled around for some stunning views of the area.
Even further up at the top of the mountain we came to the palacio da pena, the royal summer residence, and a mad jumble of architectural styles. It really looked like a fairytale castle. The place was fun, fun, fun and we spent quite some time exploring it and enjoying the remarkable views before heading back down into the town.
We have become half day tourists and don’t really care for visiting too many museums or palaces in one day so we left a lot of the area unexplored and headed back to town to find an internet place and book accommodation for Barcelona. This turned out to be difficult as most cheap beds online were booked out. Having just said that we don’t like to go to too many things in a day we purchased lisboa tickets for the next day which allowed unlimited travel on the trains for 24hr and free entry into many museums and palaces.
Next day. Headed out to the bus station and dropped off our bags with the bus company. Storage lockers were extortionate. Then off on the train yet again to Cascais resort about 32km away from Lisbon. There was suppose to be thunderous surf crashing in but we neither heard nor saw it so after a quick wade in the freeze water a walk along the beach and a look at the harbour entrance we decided to grab picnic lunch supplies and head out Sintra again as it was so nice. Again had trouble finding the entrance to the train station and noted some large aquaducts on the way. This time we visited the palacio national da sintra after having a nice lunch with the ducks and some large paper mache animals in a park. The palace was a modified Muslim palace and almost every room had themes highlighted with painting on the ceilings such as the swan room and the stag room. I particularly like the echo in the kitchen with the odd chimneys and of course the stunning views from the palace.
We had every intention of going to Belem and visiting more museums but were more than satisfied with the day so just got ready to leave in the evening,. Grabbed some food and headed back to the bus station and were delighted to find that we had wifi reception without a key so checked our emails and surfed the net for a while until the reception disappeared abruptly. Wasn’t long for the Madrid bus anyway.
Overnight bus was on time and it turned out that the bus was going to Madrid and then onto Barcelona but our ticket was to Madrid and then onto another bus with the same company on a different route so we couldn’t stay on the bus. Too complex for simple minds to work out so we ended up having to be driven to another bus station when we arrived at 630am. Worked out alright as the next bus headed out at 7am anyway. Nice to cover the ground to Barcelona during the day so we could see the sights…
Bye,
David and Vanessa
