Sintra

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Today we decide to head to the town of Sintra, which is about a half hour train ride from Lisbon. We kill some time waiting for our transport wandering through the very large and attractive Rossio Square next to the station.

We pass through Benfica station, which is also the name of Portugal's most famous and successful soccer team. We read that it has fourteen million supporters worldwide, which is more than the entire country's population. The taxi driver who drove us in from the airport told us that Portuguese people only go crazy when they're doing two things - driving and watching soccer. Benfica was particularly successful in the 1960s when Eusebio, who's generally regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all time, played for them. Taximan told us that he's buried in the Lisbon's Pantheon, where only the most revered Portuguese are interred, and that we must visit this while we're here. I like sport as much if not more than the next person, but I'm not sure this quite extends to spending my valuable holidays visiting the graves of deceased soccer players.

Sintra old town lies at the foot of the Sintra Mountains, and is surrounded by lush green forests. We read that it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the mountains and the Sintra-Cascais Nature Park are home to a vast array of palaces, castles, estates and royal retreats.

First stop is the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, which is right in middle of town. It has two large conical white chimneys which dominate the local skyline. We read that the Moors are believed to have built a palace on this site in around the tenth century. It was recaptured in the twelfth century, and then rebuilt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so nothing of the earlier structures remains. It's a very attractive mixture of Gothic, Moorish and Mudejar architecture. Issy seems to have taken quite a liking to it; she says it's now her favourite palace on the planet.

As we stroll through the historic old town it's a bit hard not to notice a statue of a knight in the middle of one of the busy alleyways; at least it looked like a statue until we noticed the money bag in front of it. Every time someone goes to deposit coins in the bag the "statue" suddenly springs to life - yelling, and banging its sword loudly on the ground. Based on the reactions of a couple of the more elderly and unsuspecting passers-by I hope there's a defibrillator handy.

Next planned cab off the rank is the Castle of the Moors which we can see perched high on the mountain above us. As we start our trek a man stops us and offers us a lift in his fancy taxi. He asks us if we realise that we've got a hour's steep walk in front of us. We tell him that we like walking; I'm not sure we like walking quite that much but we plough on anyway. The path leaves the road and leads us up along a narrow trail through the thick forest of the Parque das Merendas. Back on the road again and another taxi stops to offer us a lift. I thought we were going the right way, but this guy tells us that we've still got ten kilometres and an hour and a half to go, which is half an hour longer than the last guy told us when we were presumably a lot further away. A few minutes later a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle taxi stops to offer us a ride. Hmmmm. There's a definite pattern developing here, and we're now worried enough to accept. We buckle in for the long drive. A few short minutes later we need to unbuckle again because it seems we've arrived. We could have crawled up here backwards in less time than the first two taxi drivers told us. I make a mental note to be less trusting of taxi drivers from now on.

We read that the Castle was originally built by the Moors in the eighth and ninth centuries. The outer wall is around six hundred metres long and sits on and around the highest parts of the forested mountains. The views from the walls and turrets over towards the coast and back towards Lisbon are excellent.

Next stop is the massive Pena Palace and its surrounding gardens. We follow a path past some ornamental lakes and on up the hill through more thick forest. The Palace itself looks like something straight out of Disneyland. It sits right on the top of a mountain, and is a mass of ochre and red coloured towers and turrets. It is absolutely spectacular both inside and out. Issy's last favourite palace didn't keep its status for too long; she says that this has now overtaken it. We read that Pena started life in the Middle Ages as a small chapel. A monastery was then built here in the late fifteenth century, accommodating a maximum of only eighteen monks at any one time. While the Chapel survived, the monastery was severely damaged by lightning in the mid-eighteenth century and was then totally destroyed in the Great Lisbon Earthquake. It lay in ruins for many years until the current structure was built between 1842 and 1854. We spend a long time wandering around both inside and out. It's getting late; we're on top of a mountain, and the sun's going down, so it's now starting to get really cold.

We're tired so decide to have dinner in a small square near our apartment. I order a vegetarian pizza. I'm used to these being topped with capsicums, artichokes and mushrooms. The topping on this poor excuse looks like someone microwaved a packet of steamed vegetables from the freezer section at Coles. It's mostly carrots, sweetcorn and broccoli. Fortunately the taste's swamped by the cheese, and just to be sure I swamp it further with a few hefty doses of sangria and beer.

A couple of musicians set up shop in the square. They launch into some Fado, which is apparently very popular here in Portugal. We read that it's generally very mournful, and is usually about poor people being resigned to their fate in life, but longing for something more; Fado is the Portuguese word for destiny or fate. The music's beautiful, but it is certainly very mournful, and all seems to be in minor keys. I think that I must watch too many late night foreign movies on TV. I now feel like I'm sitting in a bar in the backstreets of some poor small village in the Amazon jungle.

As we sit here we start to get a feel for what living in a neighbourhood like this must be like. The neighbours talk to each other through open windows across the narrow alleyways. Phone reception can't be all that good if the number of young girls perched precariously on window sills with phones held aloft is anything to go by. I hope they're being careful. It's all very cute nonetheless.

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