You may note I´m having difficulty getting Blogger to show the correct post time... I´m working on it, but I´m not sure if it can be solved from here.

Tuesday, 12 March 2002. 17.03 GMT
Location: Commuter train from Sintra back to Lisbon
Weather: Cloudy, but it stopped raining

Wow, what a hike! The three km from Sintra to the castle is steeply uphill, but well worth it for the believable views from the top. However, to get into the castle and see the views I needed a ticket, and a sign halfway up the path from Sintra announced taht the tickets were sold back in the village. Gambling that this meant that the castle would be unmanned, I decided to press on. Bad news: a neatly uniformed guard was posted at the castle gate and firmly turned me back. Good news: he pointed me towards the car park, much closer than the return to the village would have been.

Once inside the castle, I spent a quality half hour in complete solitude wandering through the grounds and taking pictures of the amazing views. The castle´s battlements are almost entirely open to visitors, which, given the lack of supervision and more importantly safety railings, means that visitors can quite easily slip to their deaths, especially on rain wet stones.

I survived the experience, and continued my walk uphill (again) to the Paláçio da Pena, a wonderfully over-the-top royal palace on the next hill. It was built in the nineteenth century as is a wonderfully chaotic mix of architectural and interior design styles from around the world.

After touring the palace, it was noon and I had been walking for 2 1/2 hours. I was hungry, and the wind had picked up outside, with dark clouds scattering occasional showers. I was sorely tempted by the restaurant in the palace, but it was very expensive. So I pressed on. I decided not to skip the gardens, despite the temptation to storm back to the village for lunch. They were indeed impressive, with a mix of plants from all over the world artfully deployed into natural-looking miniature wildernesses, dotted with decorative little lakes.

At least from there most of my remaining walking was downhill! I finally returned to Sintra shortly after 1pm, where I found an excellent and inexpensive restaurant and sated my hunger with mixed salad and pork chops. Two glasses of cold beer quenched my thirst, and by 2pm I was ready to set out again.

This time, I stayed in the village and went around a large toy museum, full of model cars, boats and airplanes, legions of model soldiers, dolls and games. It was worth the visit, but by the time I finished I was thoroughly exhausted and decided to call it a day and head back to Lisbon.
posted by Tom at 8:03 PM | link |