Lisbon; Saturday, 19 August, 2006

With another sugar rush breakfast inside me I headed out of the hotel to the Metro and caught the train out to Sete Rios station and the train out to Sintra (normally if they hadn’t been doing repair works I could have wandered round the corner and picked the train up at Rossio!).

From Sintra station I caught the bus out to the spectacular Palácio de Pena. The palace is built on the top of the highest hill in the area and has stunning views. The palace is stunning in itself with several different building styles and colours having gone into it. It is also one of the busiest tourist attractions in Portugal and consequently to look round you have to join the back of a large and slow moving queue. However it was worth it as many of the rooms are spectacular and the information boards tell you a lot about the history of the palace.

From the palace it was a short walk down the hill to the Castelo dos Mouros or Moorish castle. This is perched on the top of the next highest hill and again has stunning views. The only parts of the castle that remain are the outer defence walls, but you can climb up them to take in the views (though not particularly good if you have vertigo as they only have castle on one side!)

After looking around the castle I wandered back to the bus stop to catch the bus back into Sintra. Unfortunately, the buses, despite being quite regular, are also quite small and very very popular. Consequently I had to let two pass and waited more than 45 minutes before I finally managed to get on one, in the end it would have been as quick to walk back into town!

In town is another palace this time the Palácio Nacional. This is a less interesting palace than the Palácio de Pena, but there is still lots to see including the kitchens with their strange double chimneys, making the back of the palace look a little like a Kentish hop house.

I walked back to Sintra station and caught the train back to Lisbon and dinner. After stopping off at the hotel for a while I caught the bus out to the end of the 28 tram route to catch it through the city in twilight. Thankfully I was the only person who had thought of this so I managed to get a good seat and three stops later the tram was full. As it was evening and the roads were quiet the tram rattled up and down the hills at quite some speed! By the time it reached the Cathedral it was almost dark. I stayed on it, much like the rest of the passengers, almost all doing exactly what I was (I don’t quite know how the locals get around given all the tourists hogging their trams) to the end of the route and then caught the bus back to the hotel.