We knew the forecast for the day was rain, but we decided to stick to our plan and go to Sintra anyway. But first we stopped and fueled up on more pastel de nata for breakfast.
Sintra is about a 45 minute train ride from Lisbon and we'd only heard amazing things about the castles there.
When we arrived at the train station in Sintra we could have opted to take the roundtrip tourist bus, but financially it made more sense for us to take two taxis. We headed to Pena Palace which is at the highest elevation we wanted to visit that day, with the idea that we would walk back down to the Moorish Castle afterwards and then either take taxis or just walk back down into town. At this point it was lightly raining, but we had our umbrellas and jackets, and everyone was ready for a good hike.
This is Pena Palace through the mist and drizzle. They say that on a clear day you can see it from Lisbon... but we could barely see it when standing just in front of it.
That said, we did think the colorful walls, Portuguese tiles, and turrets were really cool and different than any other castle we have been to. (I do love castles.)
This tree's branches are supported from underneath to make a canopy over this stone bench. We took a little break here before getting in the very short line to enter the palace. One benefit of a rainy day is that the crowds were super small.
Here is a photo I pulled from the internet so we can imagine what it would have looked like on a sunny day.
Just as we were about to enter the palace, it began to POUR. We were so glad that we got an early start and hoped that the rain would dissipate while we toured the interior. There have been structures on this site for a long, long time, but the current palace dates from the 1800s when Ferdinand II decided to renovate the old monastery that was here into a royal residence.
The details inside the palace are pretty amazing and different from other places we have visited. Many rooms are fully tiled, and this room's walls are completely covered by this raised geometric pattern. It almost looked like the negative space had been carved out, but I didn't see any information about how it was done. It was really intricate though.
Jacob asked me if this is what I mean by "door knob." We only have door handles in Germany. and the kids think that round door knobs are hilarious.
I don't know what this room is called either, but I could have totally cozied up on one of these couches with a book and some hot cocoa on this rainy day.
All of the royal details were present in this palace, though maybe not on as grand of a scale as the major French castles.
And the 1800s era kitchen had everything a chef might need. I could make some serious soup in one of those giant pots.
When we had exhausted the indoor sights, it was still raining quite hard so we popped in the restaurant for some soup, salad, fruit, and of course, pastel de nata. Next we perused the gift shop and bought a postcard or two. But finally we had to face the fact that the rain would not be stopping, and we'd have to go out in it. We decided not to visit the Moorish Castle, as that would be outdoors, slippery, and dangerous with the little ones.
So we looked for a taxi, or tuk tuk... but there were none. At the bus stop there was a line at least three bus loads long. So we began to walk downhill thinking maybe we would meet a cab along the way. We did not. At one point we saw a trailhead that pointed toward town, so we tried that route, but ended up going the wrong direction, and parts of the trail were like raging rivers, so we returned to the road which seemed like the safer choice. We walked for about 30 minutes and were completely drenched. I didn't take any photos as I was trying to keep kids in good moods and didn't want to ruin my phone in the water.
We had only made it about half way back to town in this time, but then a tuk tuk driver stopped for us! He could only seat four, but let us all get in out of the rain and got a second tuk tuk to meet him and take two of us. So in this way we finally made it back to the Sintra train station! However, the next train to Lisbon didn't leave for 45 minutes. So we went across the street and all warmed up with mugs of hot cocoa.
When we finally made it back to Lisbon, we were all ready for a big comforting meal. We found an Indian restaurant not far from our hotel, and sat down for a delicious dinner. Once everyone's bellies were full we went back to the apartment and had everyone take hot showers and get into dry jammies. In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have even tried going to Sintra in that weather, but I'm glad that we got to visit Pena Palace and it was amazing to see the kids tough it out with no meltdowns. Rob and I were both really impressed by their determination and positive attitudes.
I wish we'd had one more day in Lisbon, but I am thankful that we had the opportunity to go at all. It is a pretty unique city and we felt like we were just getting the hang of it when it was time to head home. You never know, maybe someday we'll be back again.
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