sintra

ginny had an aunt winnie who was married to a man named roland...winnie and roland lived in the sintra area for 14 years of their (roland's) retirement...the day-long tour to sintra came highly recommended by the hotel staff and with a family connection we decided to make the journey...

the first stop was pena castle...the site was once a monastary (feels like a theme in these parts) and some of this 19th century castle saved portions of the 16th century monastery in its design...

 the castle is HIGH up on the mountain top...winding roads with frightening drops as we looked out the windows of the bus...i did think about what would happen if we missed a turn and took the drop...oy...

 this scary guy was worth a photo for sure...

 we were not allowed to photograph inside the castle...it is furnished with original items from the royal family...the last of the family left the castle in 1910...they had running water (hot and clod) and an amazing tub and shower combo that i very much wanted to document...

 the views from the castle were spectacular...

 after the tour we returned t0 the village of sintra for a little shopping and lunch...there were 9 of us on the tour...a woman from spain...a couple from brazil and two couples from croatia...we engaged in some wonderful conversation with one of the men from croatia throughout the day...an interesting soul there...

center of sintra...

 the view from the square...

 after lunch we boarded the bus and headed to cabo da roca...the western most point of europe...beautiful beautiful beautiful

 another stop later down the coast...cabo raso...

 men fishing from the tops of the cliffs...can not imagine how this works...

 our final stop was the village of cascais...a fishing village...they call it a village...really there are over 30,000 inhabitants...village bah!

we returned to lisbon...whooped from three days of buses and climbing...i said to ginny when we were arriving in lisbon that i hoped we would leave portugal feeling like we wanted more...i do...i do want more...

we will rise before the sun tomorrow to begin our 2 day journey home...we have a 24 hour lay over in amsterdam...i have been in the airport many times but not the city...we will have the afternoon to see the anne frank haus and the van gogh museum...

kir&gin