A multi-pronged Aug-Sep 2018 trip to Boston to visit Allie, then to Lisbon via Dublin to spend time in Portugal with Laurie, culminating in a return to Boston to meet Barb for a long weekend.
Previous Post | Next Post | Trip Home
Friday, Aug. 31: Sintra
This was our day to explore Sintra, an inland town north of Cascais and also not far from Lisbon with a number of interesting sights. We didn’t know a lot about Sintra before visiting but knew there were a variety of palaces and places of interest. It proved to be considerably more interesting with many more places to visit than could fit in one day.
The primary transport from Cascais to Sintra is by bus, so we walked down to the bus station 20 minutes early, having misread the schedule. We caught the 417 bus at 10:00 and were in Sintra about 45 minutes later. We then waited for another loop bus within Sintra to get to our first stop, the Pena Palace. I’d read a number of reviews the night before complaining of the multiple lines and recommending to just get tickets online for the grounds rather than waiting to see the interior of the palace. So that’s what we did. The bus drops you at a lower gate to the palace and it’s a relatively short but very steep walk to the palace. There is a shuttle, with another line and fee, but we braved the walk and eventually made it to the hilltop palace.
The palace is a magical multicolored fantasy built in the mid 1800s by Prince Ferdinand (later King Fernando II) as a royal summer retreat. The palace has commanding 360-degree views from its ramparts and terraces and lots of whimsical nooks and crannies. In this day and age it’s an irresistible magnet for selfies and Instagram shots, and it gets pretty annoying always having to dodge other peoples’ backgrounds. But it was also quite lovely to find a spot along the ramparts and consider the view. It’s a special place, with views of the Atlantic toward the west, the town of Sintra and the Moorish Castle to the north, and the growing sprawl toward Lisbon in the east.
We spent an hour or so exploring the building exterior and views and a little time at the cafe before heading downhill through the gardens and forest. We no doubt should have spent more time at the palace, toured the interior and learned more of its history, but there definitely was a crowd. Maybe next time. Here’s a good article about the palace we found subsequently with some shots of the interiors.
The gardens were delightful, with beautiful trees including imported sequoia, and far more extensive than we could cover. We searched out paths that went mostly downhill; nothing’s all that well marked and the gardens are designed for getting lost and wandering, which is an admirable sentiment unless you are trying to pack in multiple sights in a day. We were delighted to sit for a few minutes in a very nice little House of Small Birds which had a Moorish design, babbling little fountain and incredibly cool tile walls and marble benches. Below that was a series of small lakes with a healthy population of carp, swans and ducks. All quite idyllic.
We exited through the garden gate and while waiting for the bus were approached by a driver offering to take us into town for Eu10. It seemed like a reasonable deal so we hopped in. The driver was very friendly and gregarious, claiming to having only learned English within the last 6 months and needing to practice. We had a fun conversation and he tried to get us to eat at a “recommended” restaurant. We might have done so, but didn’t want a full meal. Instead we found a place and ordered a few prepared items from the bar that were pretty terrible, and only later found out they had a sandwich menu which may have been a little better. Our plan was to catch another loop bus, the 435, which went to three of the other destinations we thought we might try to hit that afternoon. But the afternoon was getting on and we never did see the 435 bus, so we opted for a (not very expensive) cab ride to the Quinta da Regularia.
The Quinta was a mansion and grounds built mainly in the late 1800s by Carvalho Monteiro who got rich(er) from the Brazilian coffee trade. Only one level of the main house was open, the rest closed for repairs, so we didn’t get the full effect and couldn’t find the audio guides which evidently help clue you in to the many references to the Masons, Knights Templar and Rosicrucians. That was somewhat disappointing but the guidebooks all extolled the gardens, and indeed these were quite magnificent, not only for the flora but for a huge number of follies and whimsies built around every corner. It was a grown up playground, with grottoes, water features, lots of turrets and viewpoints and generally a lot of fun. The highlight is the “Initiation Well” a 90-foot inverted tower going into the ground. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering and leads to a network of caves, one ending behind a waterfall. We spent a couple more hours wandering these grounds, going up and down the hillside.
We knew we weren’t going to get to the other sights in Sintra, but we thoroughly enjoyed the two we saw. If and when we get back, we’d like to see the interiors of the Pena Palace and Quinta da Regularia and learn more of their histories. We missed wandering the Moorish Castle which looks a bit like a section of the Great Wall, the Monserrate Palace with its tribute to Moorish architecture, and the National Palace. We considered the option of heading back to Sintra on Sunday, but ultimately we elected to hold off and keep a return to Sintra as an incentive for some future trip. It is worthy of more days.
We caught a tuktuk ride back to the bus station after a full day, Laurie had to try a snack of the local pastries, travessairos and queijadas, then caught the bus back to Cascais.
Our dinner plan that night was to try the restaurant below our apartment, O Segredo. It was well reviewed as a Brazilian/Portuguese place specializing in picanha, a thin-cut marinated steak. When we went downstairs close to 9:00 the place was full and nicer than I thought, but the host said there was no way we’d get a table that night without a reservation. We whined politely and made a reservation for the next night. The host then mentioned that maybe he could get us a table in about 45 min if we’d stay and have a drink. That was fine with us. He poured me a stiff gin and tonic and Laurie a small carafe of wine, then brought us a little beef croquette that was quite nice. After maybe 15 minutes he said a table had opened and we sat down. The waiter simply asked how we’d like our beef prepared (medium rare, please), and out came the food: more of the beef croquettes, rice, black beans, a sort of tomato salsa, roasted potatoes with garlic aioli, and the picanha…and a carafe of really nice house red wine.
When that round was done, out came more, and more until you said “no more”. My kind of place. It was also the kind of place for large groups of locals to gather and eventually we were surrounded by several large tables with more than a dozen increasingly drunk guests at each. A round of “Happy Birthday” at one table brought cheers and singalongs from the whole restaurant, followed by some other song by a competing large table. It seemed like a good time for us to head back upstairs, but we’d had a very enjoyable evening.
Google put together a movie (slideshow) of our day in Sintra. Thanks, I guess. I didn’t ask for this and it shows the limitations of just stringing together a bunch of pictures without added context…but thanks for the effort, Google.
You must be logged in to post a comment.