Sintra part 2

After going to the castle and the palace, there was one more stop that we wanted to make.  I was pretty much done by that point, so this felt a little tacked on at the end (much like it's tacked on to my last post).

Quinta da Regaleira is an estate in Sintra, that is now open to the public.  We walked around the grounds and ate lunch there (a delicious crepe, not pictured), and then went to this Initiation Well.  What is it an initiation into?  I don't know, but it was cool.

The well from the top...

and from the bottom, looking up.

Bottom of the well.

After all that, we were ready to take the train home.  This is a billboard at the train station...

We went to find this little shopping area for hipsters, LX Factory.  Even though we said it a million times, I kept thinking it was called XL Market.  

My friend, Kathy, is a graphic designer, so she notices a lot of packaging that I might not otherwise notice.  

Lisbon at night...

Sintra part 1

A short train ride away from Lisbon is Sintra.  After getting off the train, there is a bus stop where you can take a public bus through a loop to the major sights, and ends right back at the train station.

The first stop was to the ruins of this Moorish castle.  We walked up this slope and up many, many stairs to the top.  This was top three in my favorite things we did while in Portugal.

View of the city from the top

View of the palace on a different mountain

Yes, I hiked up to the top in flip flops.  We walked 22,000 steps that day, and according to the app on my phone, 70 floors.  The whole time I was thinking, "This is exactly something my mother would do."  I was also thinking how much she would love it.  

After the castle, we got back on the bus, and took it up some very windy streets.  The bus was super packed, which meant that most people did not get off at the castle.  Instead, they all got off at the Pena Palace.  As you can see from my pictures below, it was very crowded.  Although the palace was very interesting, in it's own way, I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as the Moorish castle.  Here's a picture of the palace, taken from Wikipedia.  

As you can see from my pictures, it was hard to really capture from the grounds.

Here is a panoramic shot, which kind of worked.  

One more stop in Sintra to come...

Lisbon part 3

Day two, we took the train to Belem.  We had a Lisbon pass, which let us ride all the subways and buses, plus the train to Belem and Sintra (more on that later).  It also got us admission to a few museums and other sites.

First, we went to Jeronimos Monastery.  As you can tell from these pictures, it was rainy all day.

After the monastery, we walked over to Belem Tower, but didn't go inside.  There was a pretty long line that did not move at all while we were there, so we left.

Next we walked over to the Monument to the Discoveries.  

we also went to a museum that had an Escher exhibit.  This is something we hadn't planned on, but when we saw an ad on a bus, we decided to go.  It was a cool exhibit.  I just googled it and it appears it is now here in NYC, as well.  

This is the famous Metamorphosis 

Plus we made a visit to this famous bakery, which supposedly has the best Pastel de Natas.  We ate these every day that we were in Portugal, but these were warm out of the oven, which definitely put them at the top of the list.