Portugal: Lisbon and Sintra

Although I have very little to use as a comparison right now, Portugal will probably rank as one of my best weekends here in Europe. It was amazing. I took an overnight train to Lisbon on thursday night, had two solid days of exploring, and took the overnight back on saturday night. A perfect whirlwind tour of Lisbon and nearby Sintra. For this trip I feel like we just said, "Portugal, here we come!" and didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. Everywhere we've been so far in Spain, someone has a Rick Steves guide, and we know all about the history and have tips about where to go and what to do. I looked up a few things here and there on the internet, but other than that, nothing. I think I just expected Portugal to be a lot like Spain, but it certainly had it's own unique flavor, and while the Portuguese language is similar to Spanish, it's still very different. But surprisingly, almost everyone spoke english, so it wasn't even an issue.

The train ride was not the greatest 9 hours of my life (18 hours round trip...), but Nolan had to use his last days on his Eurail pass, so I thought I'd go with him, and I don't particularly love flying. The rest of our group (who did fly) slept at the airport the night before each early-morning flight, so I figure either way would have been two nights of uncomfortable sleeping.

We got into Lisbon around 8am on friday morning, and the first thing we saw as we stepped out of the train station was a grand view of the Tajo River (the very same one we have here in Toledo!) before it empties out into the ocean! We walked along the river until we came upon the main plaza, the Praça do Comercio, then turned up the street and walked a few blocks to our hostel. Luckily we met Andrew at the hostel, who had just arrived from his flight, and who had made the reservation for the three of us. Then we ran into the girls who had arrived the day before, ate some breakfast at the hostel, and made our plans for the day! Since the girls had done a tour of Lisbon on thursday, we decided to go on a little day trip on friday. Destination: Sintra.

Sintra

Kelsey described Sintra pretty well when she pitched the idea: a fairy tale town. About 35 minutes into the 40-minute train ride, I spotted a castle atop a "hill" (a huge hill) and thought to myself, "Holy crap, that must be where we're going!" Once we got off the train, we found ourselves in a beautiful, colorful little town... and noticed that there was not just one castle atop the hill, but also a huge palace on the other peak! We still didn't know exactly what to do... so we grabbed some maps and followed the signs. First we hiked up a little hill to the historical center, with even more cute buildings, and the Palácio Nacional de Sintra, which we decided skip in favor of the castles on top of a hill... obviously. 

Castle on the left, Palace on the right

Then we hiked up a little more and found the Quinta da Regaleira, a palace and chapel set among a gorgeous park/garden/thing. This wasn't even one of the castles on the hill, and it was amazing. I didn't spend too much time in the palace, but we wandered around the grounds, climbed some towers, discovered secret gardens, admired many fine statues, and even explored some caves! It just had all these great little hidden nooks and crannies, and we had to tear ourselves away to get to the main attractions!

Quinta da Regaleira

We had to walk back into town to catch the bus up the hill (5€...bogus), although a few people from our group actually did walk all the way up... it was kind of incredible. Once we got to the Palacio da Pena, we took a long time figuring out if we wanted to spend 12€ on the Palace + the park, or just go for 6€ for the park. We went for the cheaper route, and it was definitely worth it. We walked right up to the palace and got our pictures, but then we spent more time hiking the trails (straight out of LOTR) and seeing the sites. Our first stop was the Warrior Statue, this giant statue on top of a pile of boulders. We just assumed you could go right up to the statue and check it out...turns out it was literally set on top of a huge pile of impassable huge boulders. Did that stop us from going up? Nope, the boys and I climbed up there anyway (sorry Mom), and while I didn't go quite as high as the boys, I found myself up above the trees, with an amazing view of the Palace!

Palácio da Pena (ground-view, not boulder-view)

Beautiful (LOTR) forest

After that we hiked up to the main peak, the Cruz Alta, a gorgeous viewpoint marked with a cross. Back at the Palace, Cruz Alta had looked super far away, and we weren't sure if we would make it! But it turned out to be a lovely hike through the woods (fun fact: most of us girls were wearing our cute sandals for all of this hiking, because we thought "fairy tale town = tons of hiking," obviously). This forest was gorgeous too (I forgot how much I missed a good forest!), and it is actually Fall in Portugal and the leaves were falling! Also, pretty much every step of this hike looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. We were constantly shouting, "This looks like the spot where the Fellowship breaks up!" or "Hey, this is where Boromir dies!" or "This little door could lead to the Mines of Moria!" Then we made it to Cruz Alta, and the view was absolutely breathtaking: we could see the Palace from where we had just walked, Lisbon to the Southeast, Mountains to the South, the Tajo River to the South leading out into the Atlantic Ocean to the West, and Portugal for as far as the eye could see to the North and East.

Vale Dos Lagos

After Cruz Alta, we worked our way around the rest of the park, visiting some more little buildings, statues, a lot of cool imported trees, and two lovely little ponds to finish it off (and I found some wood ducks!). By this time it was already 6-6:30ish, and we decided we should head back to Lisbon, which unfortunately meant skipping the Castelo dos Mouros. 

Back in Lisbon, we wanted to find a place to listen to some fado, a traditional Portuguese type of music. We found a place that had dinner and fado, but it was not the experience that we expected... first off, we were misled from the get-go. We looked at the menu outside, and thought it was a little pricey, but reasonable. So we are led down to the fado room, and when we look at the menu, it is completely different: a very limited selection, and no entrée was less than 20€. Then we are given some appetizers, and after we start to eat one, we realize they're on the menu, and would cost more then 20€ together. Then I felt like an idiot because I had read that this was common in Portugal, and I had completely forgotten... The music started, and it was pretty cool, but we felt super uncomfortable, and we didn't want to buy expensive meals, so we ordered a bottle of wine to split between the six of us, and then during intermission/before everyone else in the room got their meals, we decided to split! Awkward... and we found ourselves at a nice little buffet for dinner instead! 

On Saturday we thought we'd go on a walking tour of another area of Lisbon, but we all were a little late in getting ready, so that plan was abandoned (although I really wish I could have gone on some sort of tour and gotten more of the history of Lisbon). Instead we took our time at breakfast, making friends with our fellow hostellers, and set out to explore Belém, a civil parish of Lisbon. It was just far enough away that we had to take a horrible little tram ride there, but it was worth it. We were dropped off right in front of the Monasterio dos Jeronimos. We were able to enter the church for free, but it cost 7€ to go into the rest of the monastery. We decided to pass on the monstery, but it was a hard choice for me because I believe Rick Steves said it was his favorite cloister in all of Europe, and the thing was absolutely enormous, it had to have been cool on the inside... 

Fountain, with the Monastery behind it 

So we headed across the street to a nice garden with a sweet fountain, took some great pics, and crossed the next street to head down to the water to see (and go up to the top of) the Monument to the Discoveries, a huge statue commemorating Henry the Navigator. We really wanted to try some seafood on the sea (practically), so we found a little place right next to the monument that had some decent prices. Everyone ended up getting the same thing: Bacalhau à Brás, a portuguese specialty in which small pieces of cod, onions, and fried matchstick potatoes are cooked up in scrambled eggs. It was the cheapest fish dish, and it was fantastic.

Bacalhau à Brás

Tower of Belém

Then we walked over to the Tower of Belém, looked at it, decided not to pay money to go up, and headed back to central Lisbon. Here we split up: a few people went shopping, and Becca and Lauren took the rest of us to try a special drink that they had had on their tour the first day. It's called Ginjinha and it is made by infusing ginja berries (sour cherries) in brandy and adding sugar (and probably a few other things). It was really strong, but not actually that bad. The cherries on the other hand... not so much. We met up for dinner and decided to go for the cheap route once again: buy cheap food at the supermarket and have a picnic in the plaza! It was perfect, and a lovely way to finish off the weekend before Nolan and I headed back to the train station, and the others went off to the airport a little later. A perfect weekend!

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In other news, this weekend my sexy Ninjas back in Minnesota had their first Ultimate Frisbee tournament of the season!! I heard they won all their games on Saturday, and I'm anxiously awaiting today's results! I miss you ladies so much and hearing about the tournament really makes me want to play!!!! There are basically no fields in Toledo... we have a little gym where I can play fútbol, and I did bring a disc, but it just doesn't compare! Until spring season!