We are picked up at the church of São Vicente de Fora at 8:15 which we had scouted out yesterday on our early morning walk and is not far from where we are staying - about 5 minutes walk.
First we detoured via Graça for coffee and pastries at a beaut cafe I had discovered earlier on my morning walk.
On that walk I had wandered into a large garden - Jardim da Cerca da Graça - but this area (whilst fascinating and with great views up to the huge church of the Convent of Graça at the top of the hill) was quite rundown and I felt somewhat uneasy being there on my own. Our guide yesterday had commented that the government had dealt pretty well with homelessness but that is not what I have seen. On each of my early morning walks, I have come across people sleeping hard.
There is a lot of street art in this area too.
So, on returning to our apartment, we set off back through Graça for coffee, etc. and then met at the church as pre-arranged, to meet today’s guide / ? ‘navigator’: Vasco (Magellan!!) - seriously.
As he drives us and 5 others he’d picked up earlier, we passed jacaranda trees in the city centre that are just coming out in flower - they apparently transform Lisbon once they are all blooming purple.
Sintra is a national park about 30 minutes drive west of Lisbon perched in the hills near Lisbon (and is sometimes referred to as ‘the mountain of the moon’ in reference to its Moorish influences) and where, in the late 14th century, the kings started building their castles.
There are many attractions here including parks, monuments and palaces, but we focus only on one: the Palácio da Pena. Vasco drives us up a winding road through magical forests and past lakes and gardens, the mist shrouding the mountain despite the fact that we left Lisbon in sunshine! Due to the particular microclimate, the greenery thrives: native oaks, hazels, hollies, laurels, box and umbrella pines.
After parking the minibus, we walk up through gardens of rhododendrons and tall trees stretching up to reach the light and then joined a long queue (what’s new?) to enter at our 10 am time slot at Pena Palace.
Vasco provided a running commentary as we took a couple of hours to tour the palace; the crowd moved through the huge complex at a snail’s pace and Vasco’s patter added value to what otherwise would have just been a slow tedious shuffle. We had some free time to look around but frankly I would have loved to have spent more time wandering through the gardens. Really, though, to do it justice, you would have to return just to do the garden separately.
By the time we walked back down to the bus, the queues were insane, and we were well ready for a break and lunch.
The group dispersed to do their own thing for lunch in the village of Sintra. We finally found the recommended Casa Piriquita and had a simple but yummy lunch and ordered the traditional pastries Sintra is famous for - the travesseiro: a pastry ‘pillow’ filled with almond-and-egg-yolk cream and then rolled and folded seven times; and the queijadas: crisp pastry shells filled with a mix of fresh cheese, sugar, flour and cinnamon.
We seem to have gathered a lot of pastries today … not sure when we’ll eat them all!
After lunch we had a drive to the coast and stopped at a fishing village and then the famous Cabo da Roca: the cape which forms the westernmost point of the Sintra Mountain Range and of Europe. We had a short visit here to walk to the viewpoint and to the lighthouse overlooking the Antarctic (argh! Atlantic, woops - thanks Bill; a brain-snap!) Ocean. Very windy!
Finally, we drove to Cascais, a coastal resort town known for its sandy beaches and busy marina. The old town is home to the medieval fort (Nossa Senhora da Luz ) and the Citadel Palace, a former royal retreat. It was hot and crowded but we aimed for the back streets which were quite attractive. The beach was busy with people swimming, playing beach volleyball, etc.
Our drive continued past Estoril, another resort town with several luxury hotels plus a casino. The English writer, Ian Fleming, also a journalist and a British Naval Intelligence Officer, created his first book, 'Casino Royale'(1953), inspired by the spies and the guests of the Estoril Palácio Hotel where he was staying at the time of World War II.
The opening sequence of 'On Her Majesty’s Secret Service', the sixth film in the James Bond series, has Bond saving a glamorous woman from killing herself by drowning on a beach near Estoril at dawn. During World War II, Portugal was a neutral state. Besides being the point of departure for Jews and others fleeing the Nazi madness to North America, Lisbon was equally an important espionage hub, with agents and double agents tailing each and sometimes meeting openly in the capital’s bars.
At the end of our drive back to Lisbon, Vasco kindly dropped us off in the downtown area on our return to Lisbon. We have not really checked this area out and as we leave in the morning, I wanted to take the opportunity to do this. It was quite a longish walk (on our already tired feet) and despite being late afternoon (5 pm), it was very hot and the white-ish surfaces so popular here reflect a lot of light making it quite glary.
This is where the Praça do Comércio is found - a huge square (with a statue of King José I in the centre) opening southwards onto the huge Tagus estuary. Everything here was destroyed by the 1755 earthquake which killed an estimated 60,000 people in Lisbon alone. It caused damage in neighbouring Spain and in Morocco and shaking was felt in France, Switzerland, and Northern Italy, too.
We plodded back - up the hill again (!) and after a shower to wash off the sweat from the hot day and a bit iof a rest, we headed out to the restaurant where we had the fado show on our Day 1 and where the food is reliably good - and the wine only 3.50€ per glass! We sat outside: it was such a glorious evening (only 7 pm which we could barely believe given how much we had fitted into the day) and the sun was shining brightly on the buildings higher up the hill, the sky so blue and the temperature balmy - we kept marvelling at how lovely it was. The restaurant has such a nice feel too - crowded with people enjoying the meal, nice music, good staff.
We had a cup of tea back at our apartment - and ate most of the pastries! Walked 12.7 kms.
Hi Pam - You are exhausting me - You are allowed slow down you know :) - Did you manage to climb the tower at the port of Lisbon and look down on the map of the new world on the forecourt?
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