This is Sintra, a beautiful little town nestled in the hills of Portugal, close to Lisbon. It has two palaces. One is the National Palace which I will show you today, and the other is the Palace de Pena for tomorrow. Greg and Alyssa found a parking space close to the center of town, but we had to park about 1/2 mile away. We parked and walked away. When we got about 1/4 mile down the road, we noticed that you had to pay for parking at one of those ticket machines. We went up to buy one, but they only took coins. We didn't have any coins on us. We thought we would take our chances (because we were too lazy to walk into town, get change and walk ALL THE WAY back). Well, you guessed it. We got a ticket! Fortunately, they gave us a prepaid envelope and all you had to do is put 2euro in it and mail it back. Whew!!!
Parts of the town date from the 13th century. It is shady and very pretty.
The Sintra Palace is known for its tiles and those two chimneys in the kitchen.
I'm always amazed at the kitchens in Palaces and Castles. They caught their own meat: deer, chickens, pheasants, boar, bear and whatever else was near by. They had to serve a lot of people, so there are huge counters, fireplaces, pots and pans and roasting spits. 
At 6'1 Greg fills this entire doorway!
Beautiful tiles line the walls of all the important rooms.
The ceilings are fantastic.
After we finished with the palace, we relaxed on a terrace having some ice-cream and we noticed these little guys. I have to say, I was a little worried for them.
We waited for the huge bus to take us up to the Palace de Pena. This is wide compared to what we faced later. There were 3 miles of switchbacks and the road was so narrow. Sometimes it looked as if the bus was going to crash into the wall on the hairpin turns. The mirrors would miss the wall by 1/2 an inch. I'm not kidding! When we got out of the bus, I checked it out to see if maybe they ever did hit the wall. Not a scratch on it. The bus drivers were excellent. Not only did they have to navigate an extremely narrow road with hairpin turns, but people were walking up the road and cars were coming down. The bus took up the entire road so it was a little scary at times.
1 comment:
We made a trip to Portugal in November last year and stayed in a hotel just across the street from the National Palace. What a charming town Sintra was, and the Pena Palace amazed me, as well. So many treasures in such a small country.
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