Sunday, September 6th - Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra, Portugal

We got a bit of a break today and didn't have to leave until 8:45 a.m. for our tours of Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra.  Considering what time we got back from our tour, perhaps we should have left a bit earlier.

We first had a bus tour of Lisbon where we drove past some of the main sights and up and down some of the hills of the city.  I remember seeing some of the streets going almost straight up the hillsides and some of the elevators or escalators that you could use instead.  I'm sure we went by the two squares we saw yesterday and the university.   I'm sure she pointed out at least the 25th of April bridge and she pointed out one incredibly narrow street - probably no more than three feet - but other than that I don't remember anything from the bus part of the tour.  I know I was impressed with some of the wide streets and  treed boulevards and wide expanses of green throughout the city. And I've already commented on the large buildings, some of them intricately decorated.  I also love the intricate tile designs everywhere on the sidewalks.  They really brighten up the area.

We got off the bus down by the waterfront and went to several sights down there.  I was really impressed with the wide promenade and all the public space on the water front.  There are a number of monuments down at the waterfront so that's where I'll start.  Most of these are in the Belem or Bethlehem area of the city.  The Belem Tower is the symbol of the city of Lisbon and it is truly a beautiful tower.   It is shaped like a boot with a high tower and then a lower tower adjacent to it.   It is made of white stone that just seems to shine in the sunlight and it is totally surrounded by water, or at least it was when we were there. It may not be all the time if it is a tidal issue.  It was built as a defence tower but the design is quite lovely so it looks more like a piece of art than a defence tower.  Historically it is the 16th century Tower of St. Vincent - a defence tower and a prison built on a small island in the Tagus - but now it is just called the Tower of Belem and is a great tourist attraction and is used for exhibitions.  People were line up to go into the tower but we did not have time to do so.  Just past it there is a marina and a small fortress that is now a military museum but we also didn't have time for that.

The Monument to the Discoveries is also a really nice monument.  It has 32 people moving to the prow of a boat (16 on either side) toward Henry the Navigator who stands at the very front.  All of the people are male except for one who is Queen Philippa of Lancaster.  Some of the males are Vasco da Gama, St. Francis Xavier, Ferdinand Magellan, and other scientists, cartographers, missionaries, etc.  The design looks like there are full sails above the people.  The front view is narrow and has large sword on it but that can also be taken as a cross.  As our guide noted, in reality they went out to conquer the world but they always took priests along with them to say it was a journey to convert the world to Christianity.  Officially this monument is called Doca de Belem.  On the square in front of the monument is the most interesting part in my opinion.  There are maps of the world outlined on the sidewalk and the dates of all the Portuguese discoveries are noted on the maps, and they certainly covered most of the world.  This was really interesting to see.  I knew they had discovered a lot of places but I didn't realize how many from South America to India and beyond.  And just in case you'd rather be  flying than sailing, there is a model of a small two-person float plane in the same general area.  It flew from Lisbon to Rio in 1922.  It took 66 hours of flying time but 72 days.  I would not have liked that trip.

We then walked across the street and through the beautiful gardens with ponds and fountains to the 16th century Church of Santa Maria at the St. Jeronimos (Jerome) monastery.  We snuck in right after mass.  There were other lines waiting to get in for a tour but we just went straight in and looked around.  I believe the church and gardens are all part of a larger 14th century monastery and it is all very impressive.  The church is Gothic with a high tower and all made of light stone.  The entrance has a high arched door with carvings all around.  There must be 30 statues and as many spires carved on this one facade alone.  And there is a lovely carved railing around the top of the church to top it all off.  On the inside it is basically white or light with golden hues, possibly from the artificial lighting or from the stained-glass windows.  The columns are thin and ornately decorated with carvings.  The ceiling is carved between the arches and beams and there are tapestries and paintings throughout the church but not a lot of them.  The front altar is very impressive with colourful paintings between light marble arches and columns.  On one side of the church there is a door with different faces carved all around it.  Our guide told us the faces were to represent all the different people they discovered around the world but the faces didn't make a lot of sense to me given the countries they discovered.  

There are two tombs just inside the door of the church and both have very ornately decorated coffins.   They belong to the discoverer Vasco da Gama and to Luis de Camoes, a poet and writer who documented the Portuguese expeditions and discoveries.   At either end of the transept by the front altar and fenced off there was also a coffin.  These were harder to see but they were resting on small statues of elephants.   King Manual I and King John III with their respective wives rest in these tombs.   There was a lot more to the monastery but we did not have time to see anything but the church. 

After we finished with our tour of Lisbon we headed along the coast to Cascais, about a 45 minute drive.  The seaside route to Cascais was beautiful with lovely beaches in places and rugged rocks in other places.   There were also old seaside fortifications and towers in some spots and they looked brilliant in the sunshine as most of them were a light sandstone colour.

Cascais is a lovely little town right on the ocean.  It has a beautiful sandy beach and a marina beside it.  It has a beach promenade and across the street a big square with a wonderfully tiled walkway that looks like wavy lines and can really be an optical illusion when you look at it.  The town, like so many others is spotlessly clean   There are some larger older buildings fronting the waterfront.  One that has a clock on it and i thought that was city hall but I later found City Hall with lovely tiled pictures on the side of it so I'm not sure about the first one.  Many of the buildings were a light colour but in shades of yellow, pink, blue, tan, which made the whole area look very restful.  There was a statue of King Pedro I (Peter I) in the square. Behind the front square there was another square with all kinds of cafes and bars around it.  We had to have our lunch at this stop so we went up on one of the patios overlooking the square and ate up there.  Afterwards we all went in different directions for shopping, sightseeing, etc.  There were lots of people around and I'm sure it would have been a great place to spend more time in but we had to continue on our way.

At one point along the coast we saw the most westerly point of Europe and stopped to take some pictures.  The guide was calling it something like Griesko but when I checked later all I could find, and it was in the right area, was Cabo da Roca, which I am going to translate as Cape Rock even though that is not what the online translators tell me.  It works for my purposes though because it's a cape and it's a rock.  There are some white buildings and a lighthouse on the cape but we did not go out there as we were off to another destination.

Our drive to Sintra took us away from the shore and up into the hillsides and mountainous area.  Sintra is a small village but there is a lot to see including the royal palace, which was our main reason for coming here.  The bus dropped us off and would later come back to pick us up at one of the corners - obviously a corner for all tour buses as it was almost a continual parade of buses dropping off and picking people up.  I could certainly see the reason our guide was telling us that we had to be to the stop early to be ready to get on.  If we missed the bus it was going to be a really long walk back to town.

Once we had our bearings, we went to the royal palace for our tour.  From the outside the building doesn't look all that royal.  It looks big, but not particularly fancy.  It is a white building several storeys high and squarish with many additions to the main building.  There are two huge cone-shaped chimneys that rise above it.  It was lived in by the royals from the early 15th century to the late 20th century and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  In the Moorish days of the 8th century there were two castles in Sintra.  The one we were visiting down in the city remained in use by the new royal families.  The one up on the hill simply became a ruin.  However, even today it is a very impressive looking castle sitting way up on the top of the hill.  

Most of what we see today at the royal palace is from the 14th and 15th centuries but, as usual, there was remodelling done continually as a new monarch lived in the palace.  Some of the major remodelling came in the 16th century when King Manuel added some rooms and redecorated others in old Arabic style with geometric patterns and multi colours.  He also added the coat of arms room where there are 72 coats of arms on the high domed ceiling and blue tiled historical pictures around the walls.  It is a small room but awesome in its design.  And I guess I should add that there are only 71 coats of arms now as one of them was removed after an act of treason. 

King John I left his mark in some of the rooms.  The swan room is so named because it has swans on the ceiling.  I think there were 24 and I think it was a story for his daughter or something she liked.  The magpie room has magpies on the ceiling each holding a message in their beak saying "for honour".  apparently the number of magpies equalled the number of ladies in the court and it was his way of telling them to keep their mouths shut and not spread rumours - after he was caught kissing his mistress.  

Other rooms are very plain but the furniture is impressive.  Dark red-brown writing desks with gold decoration around all of the individual drawers, and there were a lot of drawers.  Pearl-inlaid tables with beautiful designs.  Large dark wooden cabinets and chests.  Fancy chandeliers.  Delicate ivory (?) gifts in fancy gold cases.  Decorative urns on polished tables and stands.  Rich tapestries hanging on the walls.  Dining rooms with big tables of dark rich wood.  Even in plain white rooms these pieces looked pretty darn good.  There was a small chapel that was pink with white doves on the walls and it was very nice.  King John I's private chamber looked like it was fit for a king, albeit not nearly as comfortable as we have it now.

From all of the windows there were lovely views of the gardens or ponds or fountains and from the higher windows there were great views of the entire countryside and the castle ruins up on the hill.  Oh, I almost forgot the kitchen.  There wasn't much of a view from there as they were basically down in the basement but they were huge.  There were large ovens to bake all that was required and a large stove area with very large pots for cooking.  The two conical chimneys that stand so high above the palace are from the kitchen and probably very much needed.  They even had running water in the kitchen and I think that was the only sign of it in the whole palace but I'm sure they must have had some for the royal bedrooms by the end of the 19th century but maybe not.

After the tour we had free time to wander around the streets of the town.  That was interesting  I have mentioned that we are in the mountains, right?  Well the streets were narrow and windy and they almost all had stairs so you could get up and down.  Some just had the cobble-stoned incline for you to walk up.  There were shops all along the streets and some of them were really tiny.  Others were bigger but generally speaking they were small stores.  And this is definitely a tourist place so they sold just about everything imaginable that a tourist could want.  One store dealt mainly in cork products and had cork shoes, purses, belts, hats and jewelry in the window.  There may have been other cork products as well.  Since I am not your typical tourist and didn't want anything, I just wandered up and down.  It didn't take long on the "up" to discover you'd hit the end of the road as far as stores and tourist areas.  They you'd come back down and try another route until it turned into just residential areas.  At one point I found a public fountain so I could fill up my water bottle.  It was a much more ornate one than I was used to with blue tiled pictures and carved decorations around it.  I felt very special.

Where we were meeting the bus, and in front of the palace, seemed to be the main areas of the town centre and the main squares.  There were lots of cafes around and trees for shade and benches to relax on.  I simply ended my time in Sintra by having a treat at the cafe closest to the bus stop so I could watch while I waited.  I think this town was the one that had two special pastries so I had to try a small version of each.  I can't describe either of them but then neither of them really excited me so it probably doesn't matter much.  There was a street musician out entertaining the crowd there as well so I got free entertainment while I waited.  And it was fun waiting and watching the bus procession.  They just kept coming down the hill about five minutes apart, turned the sharp corner and pulled into the bus stop.  They then emptied their passengers or picked up their passengers and went on their way before the next bus came along.  And that process repeated itself continually.  I saw our Trafalgar bus coming down the hill so crossed the street to meet it.  Some were there already and others followed me over.  As usual we had a couple people running late but we weren't too bad so we didn't hold up too many buses.  Once we were all back on the bus we drove back to Lisbon.

We arrived back at the hotel around 5:00 p.m. and had some down time as we agreed to go to dinner at 6:30.  Some of the others from the tour were going out to another optional dinner but our group of six was not.  We met in the lobby and went walking off in the direction the front desk people told us to go to find the nearest (and only decent) restaurant.  It was only supposed to be across the street and half a block away.  We walked all around the block and down some of the local streets but saw nothing.  We decided to walk back to the hotel and check again.  This time some others went in to check.  Meanwhile, we knew there was a small mall next door and a grocery store so we weren't going to starve.  Aside from that though, there was nothing in the area of our hotel except high rise apartment buildings.  The hotel gave us the same directions again and we took off assuming we had just missed it the first time and indeed we had.  Unfortunately the restaurant was closed and that was why we missed it.  

We went back to the grocery store / shopping centre and went up to the food court.  There was only one restaurant still open so that's where we ate.  It was a chicken place so we all had chicken and it was really good.  It was also very inexpensive and we had the whole seating area of the food court to ourselves so it was like private dining, albeit in a dim and not very fancy mall setting.  You really do have to make the most of these situations you know.  After dinner we went back to the hotel and that was it for another day as we have to get to bed early to answer our 6:15 wake-up call.