Day trip to Sintra

Thursday February 19th Lisbon Portugal

Up by 7:30 AM and breakfast not for another hour so out came our computers to work on our journals and post pictures. Had a new girl at breakfast this morning, she is from Austria. Mohammed wanted us to visit his home town of Combra which is about 3 hours north of Lisboa…. He said he would give us the grand tour but we said no we already have our plans made….He is a nice fellow but no way would we go off with him. He is in town doing research for his PHD paper…. and is studying to be in the diplomatic service he plans to be in the USA this fall on a Fullbright Scholarship

Off we went to find the train station for a day trip to Sintra. Martha slipped on the front steps going out of our building, the cleaning lady had just washed them down, but she was okay except for a sore bum. Sure did make us hold on to each other for the rest of the day. On the way to the train we found a small grocery store and BANANAS which we had not seen since leaving England. Also got a couple of small bottles of yogurt….. so Now with these and our bag of mixed nuts we are ready for lunch on the road. They are having fish tonight for 8 euros so think we will eat dinner here at the hostel.

In Sintra we first walked up to the Palico National Museum but found that it was closed until next week. But during the walk we have enjoyed a year long modern art statue display. The walk was an uphill incline… not too steep… but you knew that it was uphill. From here we caught the bus that would take us to the top of the hill to the Palace de Pena…. But we got off at the first stop….. wrong, we then walked uphill switchbacks for about 200 meters… whatever that is, the lady says it’s a five minute walk…. Everyone says it’s a five minute walk to wherever you want to go…..think that is their standard answer to us tourist who ask to many questions. Anyway we made it to the ticket office. Once inside an empty bus sat waiting to take people on up to the palace. Martha says… we can do this, come on lets walk it…. Another long uphill walk. BTW the little bus passed us on the way up. It was all worth the effort. This was at one time a monastery dating to the early 1500 and then in 1838 the ruling family of Portugal purchased it and converted it to a Summer Palace for them to escape the heat of the city. We spent almost 2 hours touring the ramparts and rooms of Palace de Pena. A wise decision was made to ride the little bus down to the ticket office. There we caught the bus back into Sintra and rode it all the way back to the train station for the ride back to Lisboa. Nice thing was that this was something new for Martha who had not seen it during her trip to Portugal. St. Anthony’s church was new to her also.

Just a side note … we have seen so much graffiti on the walls, fences and buildings… much of it is beautiful but a lot of it is just sad to see. Also you see a lot of laundry hanging out the windows to dry. These are both unusual sights to see in America. We have graffiti but it is cleaned up pretty fast… here they just seem to leave it on the walls. It is now 7 PM and we have another 90 minutes before dinner. The time has been well spent using our computer to skype people and type our journals. So long for now….