Yesterday I got out of dodge and went to the most beautiful place on Earth. I am not exaggerating at all.
The town is Sintra, about 45 minutes from Lisbon. First of all to get there, I walked about a long ways (I don't know if it was a mile or two) to get on the metro, and changed to two other lines to get to the rail station. It was after I completed the walk that I figured out I could have taken a shorter walk to another metro stop which would have only required one change of trains.
Once I made it to the rail station, I got on the right train. And I am glad I did.
Sintra is different then Lisbon, or anywhere else. It resonates of nature-you can smell the freshness and pine in the air. The trees are lush and beatuiful. And in clusters of these trees on the hills are castles and forts. Some are the castles of ancient kings. And the most charming village, with wine-and-tapas shops.
The ocean is only a few minutes away, and from where-I went to the Westernmost point on Earth-well, not exactly. The westernmost point on Continental Europe-which was very breezy.
The only downside of the trip was on the hop-on hop-off bus-one of the stops was a winery-which I thought would be fun. No I didn't get toasted at the winery, as a matter of fact I didn't get anything at the winery-because it was closed. And there wasn't much around the winery except for a resturant, (and the next hop-on hop-off bus came an hour later), so all I could do was eat. The food was ok.
