Sintra

Hi everyone!

Today was our last full day here and it was a fantastic one!!

We caught the train to Sintra, a hilly town about 40 minutes away from Lisbon that is where all the royals used to build their summer residences. When the revolution occurred they all up and left and as a result there are perfectly preserved buildings full of gorgeous old furniture there!

There are so many palaces there but we decided to do the main three - the National Palace of Sintra, the Moorish Castle and the National Palace of Pena. The Sintra one was really nice, I loved all the azulejos (tiles). I'm a bit obsessed and took lots of photos of them!! I also really like the camellia exhibition they had on in the gardens. The flowers were so colourful! And we were once again lucky with the weather as it was 15 and beautiful and sunny!

Next we caught the bus to the Moorish Castle. The hill is ginormous so they run a tourist circuit bus around to all the castles. When we were on the bus someone said 'Is that a hawthorn scarf?!' to billy, and we made instant friends with an Aussie couple who have moved to London and are travelling around. I love that about Aussies. We can be anywhere in the world and our football teams bring us together! They were really nice, we talked the whole way and then stayed with them for a bit at the castle before splitting up.

The castle was amazing! It was ruins of walls and towers, but the views were breathtaking. Because it was a clear day you could see really far in the distance including the ocean and neighbouring hills. So beautiful! It was very windy though!

We walked from here to the Palace of Pena which also had really beautiful views and lovely antique furniture and tiles. The gardens are meant to be good too but due to the bad weather the other day (there was a thunder storm at night) a lot of trees were down so some of the garden was closed. Never mind!!

We got the bus back down to the town centre and had a chocolate shot of ginga (again that Portuguese drink) and then billy had a port wine slushie. Everything is ridiculously cheap here. Those were all €1, and we had a delicious lunch at the Palace of Pena and paid about $30 Aussie total for a baguette and fries each as well as a big Caesar salad and a drink each at a lovely restaurant! Going to be a shock going back to Australia and paying lots more for food!

Tonight we packed up all our stuff and then had a really nice dinner at a small restaurant in Alfama. Again ridiculously cheap. $40 Aussie for 2 main meals, a starter, an appetiser (bread and dips) and drinks. Woo!

Tomorrow we are just going to relax around the city centre near the hostel and then head off to the airport at about 3pm (2am Melbourne time). Our flight leaves 5am Melbourne time. I will post one last time tomorrow about what we get up to :)

Love to all,
Claire
Xoxox