Playing tour guide with friends: Day 3
To avoid the hoards of tourists in Sintra, we bought tickets ahead of time for the earliest entry into the Pena Palace at 9:30am. We got a Bolt rideshare, which was more efficient for the four of us, rather than buses and trains. The driver took us right up to the small parking lot next to the entrance of the palace grounds. We had expected to walk up from the village. There was a short line at the gate to the palace grounds, nothing like the line at 11:30am when we left the palace.
The Pena Palace, with its bright walls of orange, red, and yellow, looks like a fairytale. Walking the ramparts gives wonderful views of the forests on the Sintra hills, the Moorish castle on a nearby hilltop, and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Inside, you snake along through the beautiful rooms, staying in line with the crowd, although the crowds weren’t bad because of our early start.
Views of Pena Palace (click image for large versions)
We wanted to hike down the hill back to town, but we couldn’t find the trails through the forested grounds of the park. The employees who were there for crowd management had no information. So we walked down the road to the charming man-made lakes with their duck houses. We continued downhill on the road, which was narrow with too much traffic.
Finally we got to more level ground on the road to Quinta da Regaleira, a fanciful building built in the early 20th century, close to the Sintra village. It has symbolic and mysterious structures throughout its gardens, perhaps Masonic. We waited in line to climb down the stairs of the initiation well and walk in the underground tunnels. We visited the palace and chapel and had some food at the restaurant.
We got a rideshare down the road to Monserrate, a restored but unfurnished grand house with a grand lawn. The house dates from the Romantic period with Moorish Revival architecture. Another time, we need to explore the park grounds, around each of these palaces, and throughout the whole area. (By the way, getting the ride wasn’t easy. It’s hard for vehicles to maneuver the narrow, crowded roads. We should have walked, but…)
Today we were certainly tired out. No late night for us. We had a spaghetti dinner at home.
Montserrate and Quinta da Regaleira
