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Published: August 8th 2007
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The Princess in the Tower
This is one of many Princess towers that we climbed. This place made me want to be a kid again. Lisbon
Julie J Vanover I arrived in Lisbon early in the morning fresh from a nights sleep on the train. I arrived at my hostel and had breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast!!! Oh it was so good, by far the best breakfast that I have had. I was preparing to leave for the days adventours when Daniel arrived in the bed next to me. He had just landed from Brazil so we headed off together to explore Lisbon. He's from Brazil, so he speaks Portuguese, super bonus!
We first went to Saint Jorge's Castle, which is an old castle on the hill. The castle was cool, but inside there were these ugly white tents with vendors everywhere. We both agreed that this distracted from the coolness of the castle. The had a mirror projection system that showed the city on this huge white disk, we took a 360 tour of the city standing over this disc. On our way to Jeronimos Monastary we saw the Vasco de Gama Bridge which looks like the Golden Gate Bridge and we saw the 25 de April Bridge which is the longest bridge in Europe. The church at Jeronimos Monastary had the prettiest spider web ceiling,
Me at Mouros Castle....
It was so nice to have company, I have so many pictures of me! I loved it. We walked to the Belem Tower, which was okay but not amazing. Daniel's guide book directed us to the famous Pastéis de Belém which has been open since 1837, and after trying their pastry I understood why.
We arrived at the hostel to find out that all the grocery stores had closed already, so I headed out in search of dinner. I ended up at a Faro restaurant, now Faro is a style of singing that is very dramatic and emotional and is a Portugal signature. So I had some monkfish and listened to Fado which was okay, it was definetly dramatic.
The next day is the day I found my castle. Daniel and I headed to Sintra a city just outside of Lisbon that has many palaces and castles. I was very excited to see the Sintra National Palace as it looked just beautiful. We arrived at the National Palace and I realized that this was not the Palace that I was thinking of. The Palace that I was thinking of was Pena Palace, which was closed on Monday's. I knew that Pena Palace was closed on Monday's, but was not too concerned, because
Faro
This was the Faro singer in the restaurant. There were three different singers that would switch off but the guitar players remained. Look at the guitar on the left, cool. I wasn't interested (duh! I don't know why I mixed them up). The National Palace did not look that interesting so we decided to see the Mouros Castle, an old ruined moorish castle. We didn't really know how to get there, so we followed a big group up the hill where they went to a restaurant. Which we found quite amusing, but it was meant to because on the hill we ran into Natalya, a girl from Canada that I had met on the train. She was headed towards the same castle, so we walked towards the castle. It was supposed to be a three kilometer walk, but we quickly realized that we had taken the long way. It was a very pretty walk up a hill and through the woods. The castle was a 'romantic ruin' and it was very nice, built up on the hill looking over the Atlantic Ocean. We explored this and then we headed back down to the town to explore the Quinta da Regaleira Palace. We didn't really know what it was, but we saw it from up on the hill and it looked cool.
We got there when we paid to get
Jeronimo's Monastary
I loved the spider web pattern on this ceiling, just beautiful! And this is where Vasco de Gama is buried! in they gave us a map. I have learned that when you are given a map for a palace this is a good thing. So we first explored the Palace which was very nice with lots of mosaic tile work and towers and little balconies. Then we set off to explore the grounds. We followed the map and found all the lakes, ponds, princess towers and bridges. Then we found a cave in one of the buildings and I pulled out my nifty flashlight and we followed it to... the initiation well. Now look at the picture, words cannot describe how cool it was to be walking throught this dark cave and come out to the middle level of this. It was so cool. On the top of the initiation well was this huge door that swung and looked like a rock to blend into the other rocks so if you didn't know it was there you would miss it. Then we went to the bottom of the intitiation well and there were little fairy lights, so we followed them to another well. This well wasn't finished so it was not as cool, but still cool. There was also a
The Initiation Well
This is the Initiation Well looking down, we were so suprised when we emerged from the cave to this. It was magical, it was cool to hear the other people as they stumbled onto it too. cave labyrinth that was right next to a lake/pond thing with ducks and geese. This place was magical, I guess that it was designed to have Garden of Eden type qualities, which I could see. This was the type of place that you dream about as a kid. So, I decided that it was probably a good thing that the Pena Palace was closed because if it wasn't I would probably not have made it to the Quinta da Regaleira. We then rushed back to Lisbon because I was taking a night train out to Madrid and it was getting late.
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Again I am speechless