Storyline: Portugal by trains
Sintra is a whimsical, fairy tale city with gothic architecture, castles, mansions and villas perched on steep hills. We walked to every place we visited and some more as you know from our previous posts.
First thing upon our arrival was to navigate through the multitude of tuk-tuk and taxi hustlers, cross the crowds trying to get into buses and walk to the Information centre next to the train station. Trains to Sintra from various Lisbon stations arrive every 10 min or so. Ours was full. And it is only January.
An unusually cold January according to the locals. Not sure how this place absorbs the tourists during the summer. (But we thankfully didn’t need to fight that fight – A)
We lined up in the Information centre hoping to get some real insights. I knew what are the places we’d visit in what priority and where we’d be staying for the night. The lady at the desk didn’t know how to get to the hotel I had in mind. “Take a taxi or a tuk-tuk”, she says. “We can walk, we walked all of the Lisbon hills”. “It is way steeper here than Lisbon”.
This was probably as useful as the Information clerk could get. We should buy our seniors tickets at the ticket office of the places we’d like to visit, because they are not sold elsewhere, she added. We decided to buy the map on display.
Do not spend your 2.5€ on this map. It is absolutely useless. I am surprised they sell it. It is full of advertisements and back home the advertisers would absorb the cost. The Information centre has a café where we tried travesseiro, one of the two pastries recommended by our Lisbon Airbnb host. Then Alex set his Google map, and off we went (carrying only a small backpack containing just enough for our overnight needs – A) up the hills to find our desired hotel.
We didn’t have a booking but I had jotted the name on a piece of paper. The price was reasonable and it had great reviews. We’d decide once we’d arrived, was the idea. It is January after all. Some rooms should be available. Besides, most of the visitors are day trippers.
Eventually we found the hotel (as with most things here, everything is uphill. Both arriving and leaving. Don’t know how they manage that 😊 – A), after passing by a few others. They all are listed either on Booking or Airbnb or both. The lady at the reception was nice, let us see all available rooms and select ours. We selected the garden view on the second level. That way no one would walk over our heads😊
The lady gave us a much better and useful map of Sintra and explained in detail how to hike from the hotel to the hills of the Moorish Castle, Pena Palace, Quinta da Regaleira and the others. For the castles perched on the hills she gave us the instruction: “If you come to a fork always take the uphill one.” And so, we did, the next day.
We hiked a lot, but visited only a few of the attractions. For many reasons. How many castles one can pack in a day or two before they are castled out. And actually, spend some quality time enjoying the visit. None of them were cheap. With senior’s discount for the two of us we still paid 25€ for Pena Palace and gardens…the top of my list, and on the top of the hill. The second on my list was Quinta da Regaleira. We’d arrived at the hotel a little early. The room wasn’t made up yet but they let us leave our small overnight bag in the closet.
After checking in we walked by the Sintra National Palace, peeked at the price and decided that walking around outside was enough. Or perhaps next day after we covered the basics.
We headed to the whimsical Quinta da Regaleira – a neo-gothic mansion formerly of a wealthy Brazilian mining magnate, most known for its mystical gardens with concealed secret passages through natural and man-made caves and tunnels.
The Initiation Wells are the main attraction. We bought our seniors’ tickets from the booth, instead of lining up in front of ticket machines. I wanted to make sure to first talk to someone in case they had some information and a map or so. I also remembered from Italy that the fastest way was to get tickets from a manned kiosk.
The lush green gardens are very pretty, full of waterfalls, fountains, grottoes, wells, benches, lakes, towers and other structures.
Hiking to the top of any tower however was a struggle with young disrespectful Instagrammers running onto narrow steep stairs and pushing us away. And this is during the lowest season!
Fortunately access to the Initiation Wells was controlled. We lined up and listened to the instructions given to every person or couple in either English, French, Portuguese or Spanish by a kind lady gatekeeper, letting in a couple of people at a time and repeating over and over the same instructions, but also asking “where are you from?”.
Basically, the instructions were – be careful because it is steep and slippery, give yourself enough time, but also remember that the people after you want to take the same photo, so do not overdo it. And remember to be kind! Things in the wells went well. They are actually like inverted towers and have never been used to access water, but sooner as a ceremonial place for Masonic initiations. There is much Masonic symbolism in the designs and decorations.
The deeper one goes the darker it becomes, water often dripping over one’s head. I had my hood on. Then we exited through a tunnel. Another tunnel connected to the second smaller well.
Spent some more time in the gardens before heading out to the historic centre and find a place for a late lunch. The town itself is full of small souvenir shops that we found rather overpriced (like every other tourist town – A).
Although Alex tried cork slippers, but they were too small. Yes, they sell cork shoes, cork purses and many other cork chachkas. We walked by the oldest hotel on the Iberian Peninsula. Traditional afternoon tea for one person was 38€.
(If you don’t know it, an afternoon tea includes tea accompanied by a platter of variety of baked sweets and small sandwiches). So, we continued. We eventually ran into an all-you-can-eat buffet and ended up there. Although uninspiring, it was inexpensive with, plenty of salads, appetizers, main dishes and deserts. One could never try them all. Before we headed back uphill to the hotel, I had a shot of ginjia (Portugal’s special cherry liqueur). It had been on my list to visit Óbidos, the place to try and buy ginjinha, however as with many other potential destinations, it fell off the list because even staying in Portugal for a month, there’s only time to scratch the surface of this lovely country.
Our hotel room was very spacious. A small heater was on. I had a glass of white port and Alex got some red wine. We crashed in bed shortly after. In the morning we found that the central heating was working. The night was apparently cold even for their standards. I used a wool blanket over the duvet. We went for an early breakfast. They made me a few espressos and cappuccinos and proper English tea for Alex, which in Portugal as in many Southern countries is almost unknown. I think the owner of the hotel was English. The selection from the buffet was really good so we basically had a brunch, after which checked out and headed up the hills.
We followed the instructions, took the uphill slopes and the forks and reached a place where the trail was marked.
Of course, we could see the Moorish Castle from everywhere. It looked like a mini-Great Wall of China. We passed by that castle and continued to scale the hills until we reached Pena Palace, number one on my list. Entry is by time only.
We asked at the booth for next available slot and they gave us 11:30am (which was only a 40 minute wait but it’s a 30 minute walk to the Palace entrance – A). That’s really good given the crowds even in January. Not sure why but everywhere in Sintra it’s full of young Russians. Do they live here, did they escape the war? Perhaps they are many in Lisbon, but here in the palace, it was easy to notice.
We read that if one misses their spot at the entrance, they simply lose their money. We had about half an hour to rush uphill to the castle, where we lined in the proper queue for 11:30. They already had a queue for 12:30pm. Not long after we were let in.
This is such a magical place. All the colours, the turrets, the terraces with exceptional views of the Atlantic Ocean.
And we had a nice sunny day for all this. I’ve seen photos of the Moorish Castle-all in fog. We took our time through the castle. If you’ve been to Versailles, just outside Paris and were ticked-off by the excessiveness in it, you’d love this little palace.
Everything in it was (relatively) small and modest. Judging by their beds, these kings and queens must have been really short people. But they had great views from the top of the hill in every direction. I just wonder how did they got to there. I am sure they didn’t walk as we did.
One thing I should mention. As with everything around Lisbon, this palace is not as old as many European ones.
Basically, whatever existed, a church, a monastery, a castle, a stronghold, etc. was destroyed during the so called “Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755”. Pena Palace was rebuilt in an intentionally eclectic mixture of styles.
The gardens spreading over 200 hectares of steep hills and having trees and plants from all over the world are no less interesting and eclectic. We enjoyed our walk through them, meandered by variety of structures and strolled downhill, stopped by the lakes and decided to exit through the gates near them.
This exit wasn’t the main one and as you know from the previous post, we took a shortcut straight downhill to the town’s historic centre. After a few bites with some drinks, we headed to the train station and took the first train to Lisbon. Absolutely fantastic trip and we’ll have some tips, dos and don’ts if you are interested in another post.
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