We woke up to pouring rain. This was not going to deter us! After breakfast at the Copenhagen Coffee Lab, the next door café & bakery (best breakfast in Portugal, maybe in the world, I swear), we donned our raingear and jumped on a trolley to Rossio Station, where we caught the 45-minute train ride to Sintra.
The Copenhagen Coffee Lab, fantastic breakfast place, goods baked on site
Where we eat breakfast when it's not raining.
The #28 Trolley, apparently the tourist "must." But we're just using it to get downtown.
There were options for getting from the station into the town center of Sintra, and there were options for getting up to the Pena Palace at the top of the hill. We opted to walk, intrepid travellers that we are.
It was a bit damp, as the Irish might say. Have a look:
We found a walking path that seemed like a good alternative to the road...
... at least for a while.
The cow has the right idea
The road above the town was scenic
There is no Portugal without stairs to climb
The Pena Palace is remarkable from the outside, with its Disney towers and Moorish gates and walls at weird angles. On the inside, with the exception of the small tiled courtyard, it was kind of the same as every other old palace I’ve been in, with ornately decorated walls and ceilings, and stuffed with elaborate furnishings. I can’t say I love these places. Some people do, though, as expressed through the Ohs and Ahs of the 50 gazillion people that were there with us.
The way through was a roped off route where we all shuffled along like a herd of sheep. Elly and I were mostly happy to be dry, however, or at least not getting wetter.
How I felt when I got to the top, including out of focus.
Extraordinary courtyard, once a cloister. This reminded me of palace courtyards in India, except that we weren't allowed into this one.
The gawkers enjoying the extraordinary courtyard
Drowned rats. Happy drowned rats.
Meh
We grabbed lunch in the palace cafeteria (that sounds posh, but it wasn't), then opted for a cab ride
back to the train station. For a whopping €5 each, we were there in 10
minutes. It had taken more than an hour to walk up.
There is much more to see in Sintra than we saw, and on a nicer day, it would have been great to see the Moorish castle and the National Palace (maybe), and wander through the town, and sample the famous pastries only made in Sintra. But time was getting on, we were “a bit damp,” and we wanted to get back to get things dry for packing for our flights tomorrow.
We had dinner in a Taverna we'd eaten in before. A very small menu, mostly appetizers. The waiter was a joy. Elly enjoyed the complimentary ginjinha, the cherry liqueur held in high regard here. (Note to those not in the know: Elly doesn't drink.)
Elly takes a risk with Ginjinha
Funny thing, after all, the best part of today was the walk in the rain.
2 comments:
I've been loving these posts. Thanks for taking us along!
The courtyard thing looks amazing! Gotta add Portugal to my list of places to visit.
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