7 June: Lisbon and Sintra

Today we headed to Sintra which is a city in the hills north east of Lisbon. The city itself has a population of 300,000 including many African immigrants if the travellers join in the train are anything to go by. The train took about 45 minutes and is just a normal commuter train.

The historic part of Sintra is on a few kilometres and is surrounded by a hilly and leafy national park. Then within the historic part there are about 6 or 7 palaces and monasteries and castles spread over quite an area. Yo7 need to taxi or bus between some of them. It’s a bit like going to Wellington and having some sites in the centre and others in the Hutt Valley and Porirua.

We walked from the train station to the historic centre ( about a 10;minute walk up the hill).

I couldn’t resist photographing the tiles on the wall in the railway station.

Looking up the hill to the moorish castle. We figured we’d walk up there.

This place was across the valley. It turns out it’s some imperial palace which we visited first.

Lots of pretty buildings, most of which are expensive holiday lets.

A put it together yourself brunch. The salmon was particularly good.

The main entrance to the imperial palace/National Palace of Sintra is behind that central tree.

The imperial palace was pretty impressive with lots of tiling and decorative features. It was a pity we couldn’t get the audio guides to work properly but the signage was good.

Looking out from the entrance terrace up the hill towards the castle.

A painted wooden ceiling. – At least it looks like wood.

This collection of platters extended along most of a wall.

This room had tiling over all the walls and then this amazing vaulted ceiling.

It turns out those white things are chimneys to vent all the ovens in the kitchen.

Looking up one of the chimneys. It wouldn’t have been that colour. The kitchen’s walls are lined with tiled ovens heated from open fires underneath which presumably just vented into the kitchen space and up the 2 chimneys.

The gardens are free and are very pretty. They are growing a heap of vegetables also.

After the palace we checked out where else was a ‘must see’. Some fellow travellers cautioned us about climbing up to the castle. “There are a million steps up, it’s just a fortress and there are a million steps down. Your life will be the same if you miss it”. We decided to miss it.

The Peña Palace is a must see. You also need to go by bus or taxi and the entry is by ticketed times which they enforce rigorously. We went by taxi and the visit was definitely worth it.

First glimpses as you walk up the hill from the front entrance.

It was built in the 1800s and is a bit like Disneyland.

You can visit the exterior courtyards before your entry time

This was a summer palace for the last lot of kings and queens, before they got exiled in the early 1900s.

The gardens are lovely. Very cool with some amazing specimen trees planted by the royal family.

These are apparently sequoias. Not sure if they are native or planted.

This guy brought us back down the hill for 10€. It was a bargain.

The neighbourhoods we passed through on the train back had quite a different feel.

Much more dense housing but generally still quite colourful.

When we got back to Lisbon we were keen for a loo so found a wine bar beside the square.

This was excellent red wine. It was better value to get a bottle rather than 3 glasses!

We moved inside quite quickly as there was a chilly wind and we didn’t take jackets. We decided to eat there and all had the steak, egg and chips.

It turns out it must be the equivalent of gay pride week. To begin with we weren’t sure what all the procession outside was but the clientele quickly made it pretty obvious. Some people really are attention seekers!

The parade soon filled the square and then set off down the street towards Commercial Square down by the river. It was a bit of a mission to get across as our accommodation is on a side street along the other side of the main avenue but everyone was good humoured and accommodating.

It was an early night. Gosh holidays are tiring 😂