An early start yesterday, breakfast at 7:45 in the local Pasteleria before meeting our 8:30 Uber to Sintra.
We joined the queue to the Palace de Pena, the most important example of romantic architecture in Portugal. In the mid nineteenth century King-Consort Ferdinand II added an entirely new palace to the 16th century monastery. He built it for his wife who sadly died before it was finished. Sitting at the top of a steep hill, the palace has far reaching views around Sintra and out to the sea.
The palace site in an 85 hectare site with beautiful wooded walks around the hillside.
Another taxi took us into the old town of Sintra where we had lunch, in a restaurant recommended by our taxi driver, with amazing views over the historic town. We wandered down through some very pretty streets before picking up another Uber back to Lisbon. We certainly have the hang of the app and it’s been significantly cheaper than public transport alternatives.
Back in Lisbon, Castelo Sao Jorge was our next tourist destination. We became stuck in traffic and Google told us we had 500m to walk . Hmmm, it shouldn’t be so difficult to find a castle that can been seen across the city, our walk became longer and longer until, finally, we found it hiding behind an archway.
The castle’s history dates back to 600bc when the Phoenicians introduced Olive trees to Portugal. Fast forward to the 20th century, via Moors, Venetians, Visigoths, Crusaders and Romans – not necessarily in that order! It’s difficult to see what is part of the original medieval castle and more modern additions. The castle was severely damaged in the earthquake of 1755 and, since then, it has undergone many transformations. The most recent were mid 20th century and undertaken by the dictator, Antonio Salazar. We learned a lot from our free tour of the castle, our guide was excellent. By this time, all phones were almost flat so there are few photos, we were too worried about finding our way back to the apartment.
Dinner was in a local restaurant and involved a lot of cabbage – it was tasty, very good value and a most welcome end to a long day.
braysabroad 