Lisbon and Sintra... which I missed out!!

The April 25th Bridge in Lisbon.. or is it the Golden Gate?? And on the right a close up of all those famous Portugese Explorers....

As we had changed our original plans and arrived in Central Eastern Portugal rather than down the Coast via Porta we headed straight to Lisbon from Castello Blanco.

As I think I have said before we have ´fun´ with Nelly in the Cities and towns as we dont have a good enough address. According to the guide books we entered in the ´closest campground to Lisbon´ and headed towards it. Alas, once again we found ourselves driving around in circles.. only this time we circumnavigated Lisbon on the ring road and in almost rush hour traffic. Rush hour traffic seems to be our speciality. As our patiences and tempers were fraying in the heat we saw a sign saying Sintra. According to the Lonely Planet this is a hilltop village less than an hour West of Lisbon (hello we had come in from the East and were supposedly heading for the South.. I ask you!) anyway as the Lonely Planet also said it was a town full of history where the rich and famous go for holidays we though it was a good a place as any to ask directions. And we were pleasantly surprised. It was gorgeous, not too far from the coast and the cost of a nice hotel with parking for Molly ws the same price as a cabin in a campground.. so there we stayed for three nights and felt terribly spoilt.

The whole place was amazing. There were regular trains into Lisbon and beautiful scenery all around us.. and a major benefit for us was the free internet at the Local Library.

Our hotel room was on the first floor of a majestic old building with wide sweeping marble staircases, a large bathroom with shower, bath and bidet as well as air conditioning! We were in heaven.

The only downfall, if you could call it that was Sintra was exactly as the Lonely Planet described it.. a hillside town. Everything was a steep climb up.. or back down as the case may be. We didnt need our regular walks as they just sort of happened.

This photo on the left is the view from part way up Sintra overlooking the City and its towers below.

The train into Lisbon was an experience with two changes to the underground before hitting Lisbon central. We opted for a hop on hop off tour bus given Lisbon alone would have taken three cays to explore .. and spent the day being driven around with an english audio system plugged to our ears admiring the sites.. and the crazy drivers from the comforts of a bus.

This is the vew from the Port in Lisbon looking back up into the city. The archway isnt shown as I haven´t labelled the photos well enough to know which was which!! Another lesson learnt the hard way!!

Beginning at the Port in downtown Lisbon you could look through a very ornate archway up to the City. The plaza near the port was bustling and appeared to be the hub of the city.. until we moved on up through the Arch to find that in general Lisbon was a typical busy City with people and sights everywhere. Full of parks and fountains (Europeans love their water features and if we tried to photograph everyone we would have thousands of photos) , Churches and monuments we simply enjoyed the scenery. We did get off at Belem (Portugese for Bethlehem) and took some photos of their waterfront monuments. The Portugese were pioneers in exploration in the early days although I must confess to racking my brains for a name of some of the explorers and only came up with Vasco De Gama.. must have been away that day!! One particular monument which took my fancy was ginormous and was commemorating all their explorers.. it was really amazing.

See below left.. it was just huge .. and as I said I wish I could remember some of them .. might be something else we have to look up on the net.

The photo below is another remembrance type monument on the waterfront at Belem.

Getting home to Sintra, once again in rush hour traffic, we pretended to be Sardines and squashed ourselves into the underground and then the train. I guess living in New Zealand we never really experience the huge crowds on public transport. The smell in the underground (BO that is) was absolutely disgusting and personal space was non existent. One man tried to wipe his brow on Coraleen´s arm which, when she moved it, he just wiped it on someone elses while keeping his two hands firmly on the overhead rail. Being short (for those of you who don´t know) I had nowhere to hold onto but that wasnt really an issue as I was held upright by everyone around me, I reckon even if I had passed out I would have staid upright in the same position and no one would have even noticed.

Sintra itself was just amazing. It was Euro1 for the sightseeing bus which went right up to the top of the town to an 8th century Moorish fort. The views from that were just spectacular and the remains of the fort itself amazing. We ambled.. or rather.. mountain goated around here for almost an hour taking so many photos The countryside was lush and green .. a far cry from what we had seen in Portugal so far.
Coraleen at the Moorish fort....

It would appear weather in Portugal is like the weather in Auckland. We woke to brilliant sunshine... two hours later there was thunder and torrential rain (which was when we chose to visit the old Castle.. not very interesting in my opinion although I am sure many would disagree) and an hour later the sun was shining again so we went to Cascais to the beach.

The bus didnt even turn up.. something we have become to realise is quite normal over here. There was a lovely Croatian girl waiting for the bus also so we shared a taxi to Cascais and wandered about 4 km up the beach. While it certainly wasnt beach wether the sun was shining and few souls were baring their bodies on the sand. Cascais was lovely with its long stretch of sand, bars all along the promenade and some tranquility.. until the train chugged through.. and again.. and again. We have yet to figure why its so common for railway tracks to go right past camgrounds (4 to date) or beaches? I guess their Town Planning Dept was also away that day!!

As the main train link to Lisbon went along the beach front we opted for a train home.. into Lisbon and then back to Sintra. Bad move!! Another rush hour traffic experience only this time we got ´lost´ in downtown Lisbon. We must have walked the same stretch of road about 5 times before chatting up a friendly Policeman who explained to us how we caught the right train to get the connection to Sintra. Honestly people in general have no idea.. we had so many conflicting directons we were going around in circles.. it was only later we thought when we had asked for Sintra they interpreted it as Central.. which is Centro... I don´t know but after another awful experience in the underground we found our way home!

Coraleen at Cascais beach. She had just taken her Polar Fleece off as we were trying to pretend it was warm.. but it was far from it at that stage in the day. And the one of me is at Cascais Beach enjoying a well earnt Drink at the bar.. it had by this time heated up and the sun was in full force.

After three days in this little paradise it was time to move on and head for the warmth.. this is when we headed to the Algarve.. and the warmth?? And no.. it wasn´t!!