18:47:44 AST  04/29/2022

We got up early today and headed out to Sintra, a city about 40 minutes via the train outside of Lisbon.

The city has some interesting sites to see, first we took two busses up to Pena Palace.  This is a large palace on top of one of the hills of Sintra.  The palace also inclused 18 hectares of palace grounds.  We had to be there early because the crowds get large, as we did see, and to see the inside of the palace we needed tickets that only allow us into the palace at specific times - ours was from 10:00 to 10:30.

The palace as you would expect were grand and ornate, yet not as glamorous as others we have seen in Europe, but none the less impressive.  What was really spectacular was the grounds, paths build with cobble stone throughout and with a number of great look out points, we had great opportunity to get in some great views and fantastic pictures of the surrounding area and the palace.

Once we finished taking in the lookout points and other points of interest on the grounds we made our way toward the morrish castle.  This is the typical mid-eval castle that you think about when you read books or see sets done up in movies.  High walls, the run long lenghts to protect those within the castle.  Except this one is built on another hill, overlooking that Pena Palace, and to get to the heights of the walls and the right view points you need to climb up to the top of the castle walls.  These were challenging for us, me with my knee just screaming with every step, but worth every step.  The site was impressive.

We then headed back to town.  Portugal has tuk-tuk services, you might have seen these three wheeled glorified motor cycles in pictures of south east asia, but they have them here too, and for only 5 Euro a passenger from the castle sites to town, its really a great deal.  I was so happy she was where we needed her, I gave her a really good tip, I just doubled the fee and gave her a 20 for Krista and I.  Her reaction was worth every penny, when I told her to keep it, she looked at me with a big smile and said all of it???

Its about 3:30p at this time and we had to get some lunch - found a nice restaurant that had some burgers - just needed food, and not fast food.  Porugese artisinal burgers were good.

Finishing our meal we decided then to visit the National Palace at Sintra.  This building did not appear palacial when we first went to see it, it looked more like a government building, but inside each room described who lived there, which kings and queens resided within these walls along with some kings who were imprissioned there, some for mental health reasons others just because.

We then tried to see the gardens at another castle, Quinta _________,  but could not get into the gardens, better put, we couldn't figure out how to get into the gardens.  We walked around the gates and walls but it just seemed to go on an on, with out any signs indicating an entrance or if we were even in the right place, so we decided to head back to the train station to make our way back to Lisbon.

Train was no packed, we sat quietly just itching to get back to the room to get our feet out of shoes.  Krista's fitbit indicated that we walked over 20,000 steps and 125 stories.

After getting back to our room, we got cleaned up, rested our feet and just went down aroun 9:30pm to get a glass of wine and something simple to eat.