Sintra, My Way?

"Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes 

In variegated maze of mount and glen.
Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
To follow half on which the eye dilates
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken
Than those whereof such things the bard relates,
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates?"

--- Lord Byron

Having flown through the night --- or was it the day? ---  including two plane changes to arrive in Lisbon before noon, my thought was that nothing could be finer than to be a sidewalk diner sipping cappuccino under an umbrella, transitioning to a light lunch with local wine before returning to Dom Carlos Park Hotel for a siesta, subsequently finding a quaint restaurant for some local cuisine.

As Jacques Pépin would say at a cooking demonstration later in our trip, "To stay happily married, we came to an agreement long ago.  When we disagree, we do what my wife wants, but when we agree, we do what I want."

So, after changing into shorts in the hotel's restrooms and packing our airport clothes in our stored luggage, we strolled down the tree-shaded avenue in search of the train station for a day trip to Sintra.

As Frank Sinatra --- note the "a" in the middle of the crooner's name that differentiates it from that of the quaint town in Portugal --- once sang, "Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention."

Once again, I found myself enjoying the day even if it wasn't as the result of doing it my way.  As with La Rambla in Barcelona, downtown Lisbon turned out to be a nice place to ramble.

After stopping for directions at a Metro station and receiving additional help from friendly locals, we navigated to the correct train station, discovering we had twenty minutes to spare after buying the 4.5 Euro roundtrip tickets.

So, we agreed to ingest some caffeine, in this case Lipton Peach Iced Tea at a small cafe in the station.

On the sleek, modern train, a nice couple from Calgary sat down in the seats facing ours, and we enjoyed conversing about Lisbon, their trip and our upcoming cruise.

No conversation would be complete without bragging about our kids, and despite having no children themselves, they must have found ours to be as fascinating as we do, right?

When we arrived in Sintra about an hour later, we found the sidewalks bustling with tourists.  The problem with beautiful, easily accessible villages in this prosperous age is that almost inevitably the quaint charms that made them famous in simpler times tend to be elusive.

By the time we traipsed to the corner, we decided we were too tired to walk much further, so we headed back to the train station to buy 20 Euro tickets for the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus.

For the same ticket price, we could choose the long tour, the short tour or both, but we just took the first bus so we could sit down.  It turned out to be the short tour, and with the furnished earbuds in place and the English channel selected, we listened to a recorded narration about the history of Sintra as we rolled up the hill to the castle.

We snapped some photos, but didn't hop off until we reached Castelo dos Mouros, the ancient fortress constructed by the Moors between the 8th and 11th Century.  It's a scenic place to hike around hillside parklands.

The Castle of the Moors had been pretty much abandoned and allowed to go to seed until the Palácio da Pena, a romantic era re-imagination of a medieval castle, was constructed in the 19th Century for Portugal's King Fernando II on the site of an old monastery.

"I know Italy, Sicily, Greece and Egypt, and I have never seen anything, anything, to match the Pena. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen...the Castle of the Holy Grail."

--- Opera composer Richard Strauss, not to be confused with Waltz King, Johann Strauss

Reportedly, this should be the highlight of Sintra, but Julie preferred the authentic fortress set among forest-like grounds for what turned out to be our one hop-off site, and while the Pena was only a short hike away, I was frankly too tired to push for it.

The entire area has wonderful architectural design set around sprawling countryside featuring diverse plants imported from around the world to be cultivated in the rich soil in harmony with Sintra's ideal climate.  It seemed a bit overgrown in some places, but I could easily imagine how it must have looked when properly pruned and spruced up for dignitary visits.

Upon boarding another bus, I found myself nodding off pretty frequently as we drove the balance of the short route and then changed buses to take the long route around Sintra, so I can't say I was chomping at the bit to do more.

I stayed awake long enough to hear that many Romantic Era composers and writers praised Sintra as the most beautiful, enchanting place in the world.

Lord Byron wrote, "I must just observe that the village of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful perhaps in the world."

Hans Christian Anderson wrote, "All foreigners will be able to find a piece of their homeland in Sintra. I discovered Denmark there. But I thought I rediscovered many beloved pieces of other beautiful lands."

I also heard the name Christopher Columbus when we reached a rocky point by the ocean, where the intrepid explorer may have crashed in a storm on his way back on one voyage.

In any case, upon being dropped off at the station, we immediately caught the train back to Lisbon.  Too tired to walk back up the tree-lined boulevard to our hotel, we hopped the underground Metro and were at the Pombal Square Station by our hotel in a few minutes.  We found our bags had already been placed in our room by the accommodating staff at the Dom Carlos Park Hotel.

Time for some specialties of Portugal....or the 5 Euro Combo Meal at Burger King that came with both a double cheeseburger, chicken sandwich, fries and soda.  If you know Julie, you know we went with the latter --- and split it --- but on the walk back to our hotel, we agreed to do what I wanted, stopping at a bakery/bistro for one of their world famous custard tarts, which cost about a Euro and was quite tasty.

Finding the honor bar at the hotel meant we didn't need to go any further for a glass of rich, smooth Port before bed.