A good night's sleep and a great hotel breakfast had us ready to see the sights today!
I bought all-day bus tickets for us from Scotturb yesterday and I'm glad I did. We had watched quite a few YouTube videos about Sintra and they gave us great ideas about what to see. What they don't really tell you is that these sights aren't really close to each other and (unlike Lisbon) public transit options are few.
The first pictures you almost always see about Sintra show the Pena Palace, so that's what we saw first too. I had bought tickets online weeks before the trip since that would save us a lot of time waiting in line. I also picked the earliest time to avoid the crowds. More on that later.
View of Pena Palace
View of Pena Palace
View of Pena Palace, above an Entry Gate
Have you noticed a theme yet? Yes, a lot of the outside beauty was obscured by fog. When you come here in mid- to late October, it will probably be foggy if you get here early. This was unfortunate but I still think I made the right decision. More on that later (my way of keeping you reading).
Interior Courtyard
Dining Room
Ceiling Detail
Some Wall Hangings
Don't know who this guy is, but someone could lose an eye with that 'stache!
The Stag Room
This is what it would've looked like with no fog.
So we spent over an hour--maybe an hour-and-a-half--here and there were quite a few people who also start early like me, including tour groups. It was still foggy when we came back outside but the line to get in had grown to at least five or six times as long. When we got down to the ticket line, that was a lot longer than when we arrived, and they were grumbling. I thought, "Wait till you see the second one." While the views outside were disappointing, if we had waited to come here and then got stuck in those lines, we would never have had enough time to see everything else. If you come here yourself--and I hope you do--you will have to decide what you're comfortable with.
Second stop--Quinta da Regaleira. This is actually an estate house (quinta) built by a Brazilian businessman, António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro. It is also an example of Manueline (Neo-Manualine) style mentioned in an earlier post. There are also extensive gardens on the property and other interesting features.
We heard a tour guide tell someone that this was where the first water in the world sprang up. Who'd've thunk it?
The Initiation Well--from the top
The Initiation Well--from the bottom
Approaching the "Palace"
View inside the Chapel, just before the mansion
Fe and some bum that she knows.
View of the House
Detail of Mosaic Tile Floor in the Hunting Room
The last place we saw today was (IMHO) the most interesting. The other thing I liked was that as we visited each site, the fewer tourists there were. This one was the Monserrate Palace. This place was built by a British merchant (Francis Cook) who integrated Islamic, Romanticism, and Neo-Gothic elements into the design of the house. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
Fe in one of the Hallways
View from the Grounds
I've seen ferns before, but not fern trees.
Sadly, we didn't see all there was to see here but what I like about spending a few days in a touristy area is that after all the day-trippers leave, the real town comes out. We've eaten at a few local restaurants and cafes and it really gives a sense of the people who live here and make it worthwhile to visit. It also gives me a chance to practice my horrible Portuguese. Ha ha.
Some easy Portuguese words to remember: hoje (today), amanhã (tomorrow), ontem (yesterday).
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