My final stop of my post grad tour of Europe was Portugal, where I met my friend Yui. We met in the airport, then spent our first afternoon walking around Lisbon, window shopping, and eating Portuguese food - mainly, fried mackerel, cuttlefish, sardine bruschetta and egg tarts. These are all quite tasty, although the mackerel had some large bones which we weren't sure were meant to be eaten. We ate them anyway, and so far have experienced no negative effects. Should any manifest themselves, I will update here...
Our first full day in Portugal, we got up early and caught the train to Sintra, a resort town at the base of the Sintra mountains. We walked through the historic town into Villa Sassetti, where we followed the pedestrian path up to the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace. The path is a winding one alternating cobblestones and dirt in a steep hike up the hill, featuring all types of terrain: straight and narrow stone staircases, tall trees with huge roots, boulders to climb around, remnants of ancient walls, ponds, and beautiful views. We found it to be a magical walk, but we had no idea what was yet to come.
Narnia?
At the top of the hill we came to the Moorish Castle. Built between the 8th and 9th century, the castle was first made by the Moors to defend Sintra, and most recently was reconstructed by King Ferdinand the II in the 1800s. We didn't go inside the castle, but instead explored the second outer wall and the ruins and tombs outside.
One of the tombs.
In Pena Palace Gardens
Just up the hill from the castle is Pena Palace, which is what originally lured us to Sintra. We had seen pictures of the colourful palace and wanted the real life version, but had no idea how extensive the palace grounds are. We ended up spending so much time exploring the gardens that we didn't even go inside the palace itself.
First views of Pena Palace
When we arrived at the Palace, we were told there was an hour long line to get in and that we might enjoy "walking the garden" first. There were crowds of tourists everywhere, and a 30 minute wait to purchase tickets to enter the palace and grounds. So, once we wee within the gates, we decided to "walk the garden." Describing the palace grounds as a garden is such an understatement that it's nearly a falsehood. It's more like an enchanted forest. At every turn we encountered some steep climb to a Ricky outcropping with views of the fairytale palace, a still pond filled with bright orange fish, an ancient stone chair inlaid with tile decorations, a steep stone staircase sheltered with hanging vines and worn down with use. We walked up and down into what we thought was far off from the established buildings and suddenly came upon the "grotto of the monk," an "hermitage for seclusion and meditation. We found this and many other marvels, none of which we were looking for, and managed never to find the stables, valley of the lakes, or chalet we were looking for. And yet, we wouldn't have had it any other way. Getting lost and finding those hidden treasures was far more exciting than finding exactly what we were searching for. By the end of our rambling the gardens, we had made it to the Palace, where the line to get in was still quite lengthy. Instead of waiting, we walked around the palace courtyards. The walls are bright colours, alternating red, yellow, blue, and tile, and decorated with intricate stone carvings of figures and designs. From the lookout points we could see the forests and mountains to one side and Portugal's towns and coast from the other. By the end of 7 hours, we had to catch the train back to Lisbon, but we could have easily spent days exploring the castle, palace, and forest. Day one in Lisbon: a grand success.
Our second day, we walked around Lisbon for a while, sampling egg tarts and other delicacies, and then took the train to the beach, where we spent the day. It was a typical beach day - we lounged, swam (a bit - the water was pretty cold and it was quite windy so we mostly lounged) and drank lemon beers and enjoyed the sun.
Day three - we wanted to see the caves at Algarve, so we got up early to take the three hour train to Faro (the capital of the Algarve region, we later discovered) and hopefully then take another train to a place we could see the caves. As we have done before in other travels, we did not properly research this day trip until we were already en route. Thus, we discovered that in fact Algarve is an entire region, not just an area with caves, and that we could only reach most of the caves we wanted to see through a boat tour, which we would not have time to do after taking the second train or bus to wherever the boat tours started. So, instead of doing that, we decided to do a small boat tour from Faro to the Ilha Deserta, a sandy island with the most amazing shells all around the beach. We spend the entire two hours we had on the island on the one beach, looking at the clear water, the soft golden sand, and the shells. We then had some more egg tarts, nearly missed the last train back from Faro to Lisbon, and finally arrived back at our residencial around midnight. We flew out the next morning. Though the trip was short, it was excellent, and left us planning our next trip together.
Long days at the beach leave our hair a bit unkempt...
The train - empty so early in the morning.
Faro streets.
On the beach
Our ferry to Ilha Deserta
