Sintra Surprise

Eric loves surprising me, so it wasn't a surprise when he said, "I'm going to take you on a date on Saturday, and it's a surprise."  Knowing he had been wanting to go to a castle in Sintra, a town just north of Lisbon, I figured that's where he was taking me.  What was surprising, though, was that he had planned a full day of sightseeing that required lots and lots and lots of walking up and down huge hills.  The morning of the "surprise" date, I wasn't prepared for the adventure ahead of us as I prettied myself up and slipped on some arch-less flats.

To get to Sintra, we had to hop on a train at the Rossio station in Lisbon.  This was my first time riding a train...besides the ones in theme parks.  Those hardly count.

 

Once in Sintra, we made our way to the touristy part of town where the National Portuguese Palace and gift shops galore are.  There, Eric asked directions to the Pena Palace, our first destination.  The first woman, a shopkeeper, pointed in the direction and warned us that it was a strenuous walk up and suggested we take a cab.  Wanting some exercise, we decided to walk it.  The next person we asked directions, a cab driver, again said it was a very hard hike up and offered to drive us.  Wanting to save money, we decided to keep walking.  Close to the top of the touristy part of town, Eric asked a waitress at a restaurant if we were going the right way.  She said yes, then added a light-hearted "Good luck," to our travel up.

We had some amazing views on the way up.

We continued to go up and up...

 

And up...

 

Until we made it...to woods surrounding the Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle (which we were visiting right after the palace).  We hiked through those, and FINALLY made it to entrance gate of the Pena Palace.

Once inside, we had a picnic lunch then walked up yet another hill (to save 3 Euros on the bus up) to the palace itself.

The Pena Palace was built by Prince Ferdinand in the 19th century.  It looks like it popped out of a Disney park.  That may be because Ferdinand was the cousin of King Ludwig, who built his own fairy tale castles inspiring Disney's Cinderella's Castle.

 

Whimsical hand rail.

Portraits of the first residents of the palace.

 

The detail here is painted, not sculpted.  

 

 

 

Stain glass windows in the chapel of the palace.

We walked around the terraces of the palace while Eric played Fantasyland music.  It fit our surroundings.  We then took a look at the inside of the palace in all its grandeur before moving on to our second destination.

The Moorish Castle.

This castle was built in the 9th century by Moors, Muslims who had come to the Iberian Peninsula.  During the Middle Ages, it was taken over by Europeans of the area.

 

And now it's taken over by tourists.

Speaking of tourists conquering the castle...

Eric loved it.  It was like a giant playground for him.  I would have enjoyed it more if there was a chair lift that could take me around the castle walls.  At this point, my legs and my feet were dying from hours of walking up and down hills in crappy shoes.  My sole came off in the first half hour of hiking.  My face and hair was also ready for a break from the humidity.  Forget looking nice.

 

But in hindsight, it was such a neat experience to be climbing all over a castle that old.

Pretty street-side foilage on our way to Quinta da Regaleira.

After a while of exploring the castle ruins, we made our way down to a mansion and mansion grounds much younger than the castle and palace.  The Quinta da Regaleira was built in 1912.  This was another playground for adults.  There were caves and grottoes all over the grounds.  It was designed built by a wealthy monarchist to entertain himself.  It was like something out of National Treasure...International Treasure.

The mansion of the grounds.

Mini-model of part of the mansion.  Doesn't
it look like it's made of white chocolate?  We
thought so.

 

 

And here is when I turned into a zombie, dragging my feet every which way the energizer bunny of a husband led me.

Too tired to smile.

     

Hungry and ready for naps, at least me, we made our way back down to the tourist center of Sintra, ordered queijadas, time tarts with cream cheese-like filling, from Piriquita Cafe then made our way back to Lisbon on the train again.

Lisbon is known for pasteis de nata.
Sintra is known for queijadas.

It's not a good day of traveling until you are dead by the time you reach home.  That's the Johnson way of doing things.  I'm still getting used to it.