It’s important to find a balance when we travel. On one hand, this is the time we want to use to relax, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine ourselves going to a foreign new place and not do some sightseeing. For our Portugal trip, I kept the itinerary pretty open, as usual, but I knew we could go at a much faster pace. I was just excited to do it all with my Robert.
The drive to Sintra was easy and short. As we found our way into the historical center following the signs for Moorish Castle and Pena Palace, we started driving up the hill. A couple was walking in the direction where we were going. The guy noticed our car and waved his hand. We normally never stop for “hitchhikers”, but this time we thought there would be no harm. This couple asked if they could get a ride up the hill with us as it was a long walk, but they couldn’t find any buses going that direction yet. They looked nice, so we agreed. I will spare you any sort of suspense here—nothing weird happened! haha They were from Turkey, just travelling to see Pena Palace. The hill is a long but beautiful walk, so normally people take a bus or drive up here. I read a lot about this problem that people have when they come to Sintra—relying on the bus is not always the most practical thing. Just wanted to save this story for the record that we did give a ride to some strangers in Portugal.
We drove up the steep narrow road, started seeing lots of parking spots along the road. But we kept going and going until we got all the way to the entrance of the castle. Miraculously, because it was winter, there was a ton of parking left nearby. I read on Tripadvisor how difficult it is to find any sort of parking during the busy season.
We said good bye to the Turkish strangers, got our tickets for the Castle of the Moors, and tried to find out if we’d be able to do a zip line tour through the forest around the castle. People at the ticket office told us to go look at the castle first and that they would find out in the meantime if an 11 am tour would be happening (it was 10:45 by then or so).
The castle itself is a ruined castle, nothing fancy, but beautiful. It is OLD—built in the 8-9th century as a fort when Portugal was part of the Muslim Iberia. Only in the 12th century after the conquest of Lisbon, the castle surrendered to Christian forces. Later on, Ferdinand I, fortified the castle extensively, but through the centuries more and more people were abandoning the surroundings of the castle and moving down to the growing town of Sintra. Finally, in 1755, Lisbon earthquake shook a few things up affecting the stability of the castle. By the 19th century, the castle was in ruins, but Ferdinand the II worked hard on preserving the castle so we would be able to see it the way it is now.
This is just a small portion of the castle here, not very far from where I accidently bumped my fancy camera into the wall…with the lens uncovered.
We enjoyed walking around for a little bit, taking in the beautiful view of Sintra and the ocean.
From here, we could also see the Pena Palace-our next destination.
But first we needed to check with the ticket office about those zip line tours…oh yeah…well, the thing is that although they are supposed to happen every day, today (it was a Saturday) the people who do the tour simply didn’t show up. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, what a relaxed mentality. We are not in Japan or Germany, that’s for sure.
We had to walk a very short time before finding Pena Palace gate entrance. Wait…no, TECHNICALLY we had to walk a very short time, but since it was just Robert and I, not really caring if we walk around, we, not intentionally, walking probably three times the distance of what it was supposed to be. Hahaha. It would have been a very funny video of us trying to figure out which way to go, then turn around, then walk through some random path through the forest, turn around again, trying to follow some random bus. Oh well! It was fun. And we found the entrance.
From the entrance, we had a choice of paying 3 euros (what?) to take a bus up to the palace itself or walk. Walk for merely 5 minutes! I am not really sure why people decide to take a bus up since it’s seriously such a short walk, albeit uphill.
Pena Palace is beautiful! It’s colorful and ornate and is so unique!
It was built during the 19th century under the direction of the famous Ferdinand II (well, he is famous in Portugal). King Ferdinand II acquired a monastery that was standing on this hill, remodeled the whole thing and added another modern wing to it. Therefore, the castle is painted into two colors-red and yellow (I just forgot which part is old which part is new…)
Freaky looking guy at the entrance though.
This is the courtyard.
Inside, the house was decorated in a typical style of the 19th century. It was amazing to see though some of the modern equipment especially in the bathroom—these toilets brought from England and a fancy shower that actually looked like a nifty invention.
All rooms were decorated in different themes or for different purposes. I just took pictures of my favorite objects.
Out of all the palaces I’ve seen in Europe, I found something that I LOVED it. There was this room with furniture done in this particular style. It was wooden but with this beautiful detailed carving that was very unique. We were told it was so fancy because it was brought from one of the Indian colonies.
And I loved this table! Not sure about the comfort level of the fake tablecloth though.
This is the game room/ballroom with a grand piano and a few couches and game tables.
The views of Sintra from the outside were also beautiful. Now we were even higher than the Castle of Moors.
As we walked around, sometimes we saw things that kids would have liked (like hiding there) and briefly wished they were with us. But those thoughts lasted only a second or two.
We know we could have spent another hour exploring the park surrounding the palace, but we were hoping to visit one more place before the day was over. So we headed back to our car and drove down to the center of Sintra.
Good night for now!
Lyana.
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