Spring Break: Sintra, Portugal

Monday morning did not dawn blue and sunny but gray and rainy, which was very pretty (old churches and

buildings through the mist -- Bri was in heaven) but didn’t bode well for our day in Sintra.  We arranged to
meet our taxista (Rui) at the Panteao at 9 am, got ready, and headed out into the rain. Mercifully, the rain
was basically heavy mist by the time we got outside and until we found Rui below at the Panteao and were
headed to Sintra.  Rui turned out to be a very affable guy that we used several more times while in
Portugal.

Sintra is a picturesque city with hilltop castles and ruins that lies about a half hour northwest of Lisbon.  Sintra is famous for its parks, a palace called the Pena, the Royal Palace down in the city, and the ruins of a Moorish castle with steep walls draped across the hilltops perched above the city.  The Moorish Castle fell to the
Portuguese in the 1100s during the second crusade and after Lisbon was again in Portuguese hands. Sintra and the Moorish Castle was a favorite place of Lord Byron, who missed a ship for Malta and ended up spending a year in Lisbon and “glorious Sintra” and wrote a famous poem about Sintra and the castle (Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage).  It was also a favorite hangout for Portugal’s most famous poet, Luís Camões.  Beyond the poets, Portuguese kings have loved Sintra since they took it back from the Moors, and have built progressively more impressive estates and castles (on the site of a middle-age chapel to “Our Lady of Pena”) culminating in the UNESCO site Pena Palace.  

We arrived in the rain and fog, and the ancient city revealed itself to us intimately through the muffled mist as we wound through the town below and climbed the steep hills towards the Pena.  At the Pena, we said goodbye to Rui, stepped onto anciet wet cobblestone, and walked the steep path towards the Pena. It felt like we were in Brazil, with tall canopying trees and vines and green and old stone fences and paths all around us, and the mist limiting our view to 100 feet or so.  
At the top of our walk, we suddenly found ourselves staring at a wall of the Pena castle, the fog obscuring the rest of the castle.

We had the good fortune to arrive before most of the tourists for the day, and we made our way through the covered walkway and to the entrance of the castle. We showed our tickets, entered, and spent an hour in the castle admiring the azulejo (the blue-tile work for which Portugal is famous), the architecture, an interior courtyard, and the lovely castle.

 As we walked through the castle, we could see through the windows and courtyard that the fog was slowly beginning to lift.  The fog lifted entirely after twenty minutes of walking around the grounds and the gate and keep of the castle, and we could finally see old Sintra down below, the sea to our West, and the Moorish castle on a nearby hill.  It truly felt like a Disney castle -- spectacular. While outside the castle we ran into the O family that we knew in Angola, a military family with whom we were friendly. We briefly caught up before they hurried off so we could hear how Nigeria is treating them, and they continued on their tour.  It had been a year and a half since we'd seen them, so Reagan had grown up, as they said our kids had!  It's crazy that our paths would cross, not only in the same country of Portugal, but in Sintra, at the same site.  Small world!We took a family picture with Poseidon (there is a sea theme all through the Pena) before escaping the mass of tourists that were taking over, and descending into the Pena’s famous gardens. The fog had lifted!
The grounds of the Pena are spectacular, with lots of paths, caves, bridges, lakes, flowers, and little gardens and fountains -- it was immense!  We ate our packed lunch on a little bridge while the kids explored a nearby cave and Bri talked an American elder who was going home through a lost passport issue on the phone.

 Note the way Thomas is holding on to Rhea. He has a major fear of heights with his sisters, fearing that they'll slip or something. The fear gets out of hand sometimes, but here, he is keeping it under control. ;)

 Afterwards, we skipped the map and just roamed and ended up on a nearby hilltop with a cross (A Cruz Alta) placed there by a Portuguese king and, after waiting about ten minutes for the clouds to blow off, a spectacular view of the Pena across the little valley.  We headed back down the hill towards the Valley of the Lakes, a series of small lakes that the kinds of Portugal made into duck retreats, with little stone castles and caves and dugouts for the pampered royal ducks -- a little weird and very cute.

After we saw the ducks, we decided to go to the Moorish Castle and then take the ancient path down the hill that inspired Lord Byron and Camoes so much.  The Moorish castle is ancient and well kept and spectacular, with old graves marked with a skull and crossbones, the old walls rising hundreds of feet up the hillside, and a real sense of being in another world.  We roamed the lower portions of the castle, and then Bri and the girls headed up the wall’s steep steps to the top a few hundred feet above us for some spectacular views. After we had some snacks and rested up down at the entrance, we started our descent down the equally ancient stone-paved path back towards the city.  It felt wild and feral and out of time, and we had the whole trail almost to ourselves -- it was perfect!

We eventually left the old path and found ourselves on the outskirts of the old city, moving towards the city center and the National Palace.  We had been following these little trail markings all day and we finally realized that they were leading us to a part of the city center, and a competing set of markings led on to the train station on the other side of town.In town, we were back in Brazil or Alfama, lovely old buildings painted brightly with tile work everywhere. We shopped a bit, enjoyed the street performers (here it was an old metallic knight who would tomahawk you or take off your head with his broad sword for a euro), before ending up at the National Palace.  We decided that we had had enough of palaces (and this is really more of a royal museum at this point), so we called Rui, he came and got us, and we headed back to Alfama and Lisbon. Bri and I left the kids at the house and headed up the hills of Alfama to a little grocery on top for reinforcements, grabbed some money on the way back at an ATM (bless you Europe!), and then stopped off at our neighborhood cafe for some arroz doce (sweet rice, like a rice pudding heavy on the cinnamon -- I fell in love with this on my mission to NYC (a favorite among Latinos), Bri in Brazil 25 years ago).  We ate at a little table in the cafe and struck up a discussion with the 75-year-old mother of the owner who was passing through on her way back up the hill. She was sharp as a tack and ready to march back up the hill -- these Portuguese hill dwellers are hardy! After our rice, we headed back to the place and crashed. We walked a ton today!

Tuesday was another day in Sintra, but this time no rain.  Rui picked us up at the Panteao at 9am again, and this time headed to the Quinta da Regaleira, a massive private gothic/romantic residence that is another spectacular Portuguese UNESCO oddity.

The park and palace were originally owned by the Viscountess of Regaleira, and were then improved by the eccentric “Monteiro the Millionaire” Monteiro was eccentric at best, and built a series of lengthy caves throughout the property that opened onto different grottos, six-story circular staircases climbing up onto the hills above, lakes, and a church.

We gave the kids their maps (for some reason all in French), and let them roam the place for hours. Bri and I took it all in and had a pleasant morning to ourselves.

After we hooked up later on, we had a flash rainstorm, and we took shelter and had lunch in a large, improved caved called “the Grotto.”One “treat” we found in Portugal, that we first ate in Angola when we lived there, were these bacon flavored Ruffles.  We haven’t seen them since we left!
After a little more exploring together, we said goodbye to the Quinta, and headed into town to explore.After a little more exploring together, we said goodbye to the Quinta, and headed into town to explore.  After some snacks and a little shopping, we made the poor decision to hire one of the horse and buggies lined up outside the Palace to see the rest of Sintra.  The horses, it turned out, were poorly maintained and unwashed, and Thomas and Rhea immediately started coughing and sneezing as we started out. After about half of the scheduled time for the outing, the driver returned to where we started.After washing our hands and eyes, we headed back on foot towards the other side of town, visiting the Moorish Fountain and the Parque da Liberdade. We ended up above the Parque da Liberdade and in an old neighborhood near the train station.  We decided to take the train back, figured out how to buy tickets, and after a frantic race to try to get through the turnstyle before the train left (Rhea was the only one that figured it out and was stuck inside the terminal while we ran to the other side entrance), we were on the train and headed back to Lisbon.  En route, we got a good look at the old aqueducts built in the 1800s, huge aqueducts that span 18kms!Back in Lisbon, we ended up in Rossio near McDonalds, which of course is all the kids wanted to eat.  We grabbed some to go, headed back down the hill and then back up the hill into Alfama, and dropped the kids with McDs and a movie while Bri and I headed out for food.  It was too early in the evening for a fado restaurant (or for most of the other restaurants, it turned out), and Bri and I wandered through some of the shops in Alfama while we waited for the nightlife to start.  We ended up in a ceramic shop that had some great dishes and wall hangings, and I bought two of Bri’s favorites for his birthday. We eventually ended up at a restaurant near the Feira da Ladra that looked authentic Portuguese but was run by a Bangladeshi family, and our waiter was working his first day at the restaurant.  We were seated upstairs and enjoyed the ambience, even after the staff turned on the big screen and started playing Bollywood music videos. ;) The food was pretty good (even if nothing like described in the menu), and afterwards we walked back via the Feira da Ladra (some of the vendors were still out and putting their stuff away), headed home, and fell asleep.