Sintra - Day 2

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We showered last night and tangled with the shower curtain managing to soak our bath mat and partially flood the bathroom floor. We had to shower again this morning with an already soggy bath mat to step out onto. And flooded the bathroom floor AGAIN despite taking great care to make sure that the curtain was inside the shower recess! I hate shower curtains!!

This morning we had timed entry tickets for 10.00am to visit the jewel in Sintra’s crown, the Pena Palace. You can walk up to the palace, but it’s a 40 minute walk and it’s all uphill so we were hoping to catch the bus or, possibly a taxi. Bernie had read that the bus service has been a bit dodgy in Sintra this summer. The drivers have (allegedly) not been turning up and refusing to sell one way fares making tourists pay more than €6.00 for an all day ticket?? Being aware of this we were prepared to go to Plan B and take a taxi up the hill.

We walked to the bus stop where we found a few other people waiting for the bus. OK, we’ll give it 15 minutes or so and then, if there’s no bus, we might look for a taxi. We’d only been at the stop for a few minutes when a guy pulled up in a MPV and said the bus won’t be here until 9.25am but I can take you up to the Pena Palace for €12.00/head. The taxis and the tuk tuks will charge you €10.00 up and €5.00 down so I’m offering you a good deal. Who wants to come with me?? Bernie said we would go, but obviously he wanted to fill the six seats in his MPV so he kept working on the other six people, but they were really concerned about being ripped off.

He asked one of the other couples what time their ticket was for. Theirs was for 9.30am so he started working his spiel harder saying the bus is not going to get you there for 9.30am you need to go NOW! Then one of the other guys said their tickets included bus fare to which the response was no, that’s for the shuttle bus from the gate up to the castle itself, but you need me to take you to the gate. So then the other six people (no idea if they were all together or separate?) all decided they would take up his offer so we were dropped like a hot potato. The driver was like, I’ll get you a tuk tuk. He went to the corner and looked up the hill but, I guess there was no tuk tuk there? He comes back and just tells us to go to the tourist office, they’ll organise a tuk tuk for you. Ahem, thanks for nothing buddy. We were first to put our hands up, but no ride for us??!! What an a-hole!

Bernie popped into the tourist office, but they don’t organise single journey tuk tuks, she wanted to sell some tuk tuk guided day tour to us for €50.00. No thanks!! Back to the bus stop it was. Bernie says I wonder if I can use the Uber App to get an Uber? He opens it up and there is a driver four minutes away quoting €9.80 to Pena Palace so Bernie booked him. Ha, ha, he pulls in right at the same time as the stupid bus!!! Still, we were expecting to pay around €6.00 each for the bus so it’s OK. Now we are starting to think the other six tourists DID get ripped off and we might be the lucky ones to have been dropped? When we were dropped off at the gate, in good time for our 10.00am entry slot, Bernie happily paid our driver €15.00 figuring it was worth it.

In the 12^th century a chapel was dedicated to Our Lady of Pena and later, King Manuel I ordered the construction of a monastery, the Royal Monastery of Our Lady of Pena. The monastery was almost entirely ruined when the earthquake struck in 1755, but remained active until the abolition of religious orders in Portugal in 1834. Ferdinand II the King-consort of Queen Maria II fell in love with Sintra after they wed and he used his personal fortune to purchase the ruins of the monastery and the surrounding grounds and set about restoring the building as a summer residence for the royal family.

However, his enthusiasm for the site led him to opt for the construction of a palace and the extension of the pre-existing construction under the supervision of Baron Wilhelmina Ludwig von Eschwege which resulted in the the buildings that exist to this day evoking a mediaeval castle albeit one influenced by both Manueline and Moorish architecture.

King Carlos I and Queen Amelie of Orleans also enjoyed summers at the palace as did their son Manuel II. Following the fall of the monarchy and the Declaration of the Republic in 1910 the Palace of Pena was declared a National monument and today it is considered the single most important site in the cultural landscape of Sintra that was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

We queued until our allotted time and then we shuffled through the interior of the Pena Palace. There was no stopping to admire parts that particular appealed to us as there were staff throughout the palace telling the tourists to move along if they stood still for too long. The palace was extravagantly decorated throughout BUT it was rather claustrophobic viewing it with so many other tourists!

After visiting the palace we made our way out into the grounds. Bernie wanted to get the money shot looking back down over the palace from the High Cross. I had been warned that this was on his agenda and for once Bernie had oversold the degree of difficulty walking up to the High Cross and it was actually quite manageable. That was on the plus side. On the minus side, the photos he had been looking at cannot have been taken from the high cross. There are simply too many trees in the way to get THAT view of the castle. Bernie did manage a glimpse of the castle, but had to make like a mountain goat to get it. They really need to chop a few trees down ha, ha, so you can actually see the castle?!

We started making our way back down from the High Cross wondering if there were any other paths that might lead to a vantage point from which we could photograph the castle?? We went a short way along one side path, but soon decided it was sloping down and in the wrong direction so returned to the main path. A little further down the hill we spied another side path that seemed more promising. Bernie checked the map that we picked up when we entered (in French, they only had maps in French for some reason??!) and decided that there could be a spot if we just went up this path and then off piste and then clambered over some rocks … We are nothing if not determined. Possibly slightly crazy, because I did slip and try to break my arm at one point. Fortunately I survived with just a very small graze on my forearm. We did take some great photos though looking back down to the castle!!

After that little adventure we took the path down past the Little Birds Fountain, the Queen’s Fern Valley and the Valley of the Lakes. The collection of trees in the park is considered the most important arboretum in Portugal. Ferdinand was an avid collector and planted tree species from every continent throughout the 85 hectares that surround the palace. The best part about the gardens, hardly anyone else wanders around the gardens. The tours bring hoards of tourists to the palace so they can tick it off their list, but few stay to wander around the extensive and outstanding garden.

From the palace we hiked (downhill thank goodness!) to the Castle of the Moors a rare example of military architecture in Sintra. Although called the Moorish Castle there is debate over the exact date of it origins. Some place it as early as the 7^th century and speculate that it was constructed by the Visigoths rather than the moors in the 8^th or 9^th century.

Regardless of who built it, it sits magestically atop a granite outcrop on one of the highest peaks in the Sintra Hills. All day yesterday we were looking at its walls from the historic centre of town, today we were clambering all over the walls admiring the fortifications up close. King Ferdinand II was instrumental in saving the ruins of the castle from disappearing completely. Around the middle of the 19^th century he had Baron von Eschwege restore and consolidate the curtain walls and towers so that the romantic silhouette of the castle atop the hill could be enjoyed by future generations.

After thoroughly exploring the castle it was time to find our way back down the hill. Since it was all downhill we decided that we would walk. It took a-g-e-s though because the path is quite rustic and there are lots of uneven stairs to negotiate. At our age (ha, ha) it’s best to take it slow and steady unlike some of the gazelles who were overtaking us!! So glad that we did not ever contemplate walking up to the palace. Today we had well and truly earned our treats at gelato o’clock! Thank goodness we did the National Palace yesterday rather than trying to fit that in today. After a tiring day of explorations it was lovely to put our feet up in our room for a couple of hours.

We were going to have dinner tonight just at the top of our street at Romaria de Baco. Ho hum another empty restaurant that claimed to be unable to fit in patrons without a reservation. Funny how the posh restaurant last night managed to fit us in, but this one could not. Not to worry there are PLENTY of other restaurants. We wandered around a bit with Bernie looking up various restaurants on Google to check their ratings. We finally settled on one called Tascantiga where we shared several tapas styled small plates.



Steps: 18,783 (12.7 kms)

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[Caroline Brunner]

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Thanks Tracey, love your dialogue. Also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the gorgeous Portuguese tiles on either side of the gargoyle.