Sintra and Cascais

This was indeed the most exhausting day. We went by train to Sintra which is a small town in the mountains west of Lisbon. Much of it was developed during the Moorish occupation. It's always cooler than Lisbon and aristocrats built summer homes there in the 18th century. Later it became popular with artists and poets. 

Once you get to the train station, you take a bus to the top of the mountain to see Pena Palace then a tram to get close to the entrance. You walk a short distance uphill to get to the line going into the palace. The line is on the mountain so you're standing on an angle as you inch your way up.You have to get timed tickets and our time was 11:30. We decided to get in the long line because we figured it would take more than a half hour to get in. The signs said there was no tolerance for late arrivals but once you were halfway there the signs said go to the inside track when it was your time. We did that but at the top, the ticket taker went to lunch or was otherwise engaged. We waited until he finally let some people in.

The palace is magnificent. In the 11th century, the site housed a monastery but the 1755 earthquake destroyed it. In the 1800s parts of the Monastery were restored and later more buildings and the garden were constructed. Monarchs used it as their summer home until 1910 when it was classified as a National Monument.  As with other buildings in Lisbon, the architecture mixes many styles.

We got seats on the tram going down from the palace but we didn't on the bus taking us to the train station. There were lots of people standing and holding on to seats and 

hand straps. We went down a mountain that way; it was horrid. All the trams and buses are like clown cars--you can't believe how many people come out of them.

There is a restaurant close to the train station that gets rave reviews and we needed lunch so we set off to find it. A woman who was carrying brochures approached us and asked if she could help. We thought she probably wanted a big tip but it seemed she was just a designated helper. She took us to the restaurant and went in to tell them we needed lunch for 7. We told her we could split up but she and the restaurant management insisted we needed a table for all of us. We waited around 15 minutes and then Joyce went in to be sure they knew we were there. Our helper had helped someone else but came back to see how the restaurant was doing. Joyce told her she could leave but asked what name she used for our reservation: "The Americans."  Of course. The lunch  was terrific. At the end of the meal they gave us a free dessert and a glass of port. I've never been a port fan but just as I read, port is different in Portugal. 

After lunch we took a bus to Cascais which is a former fishing village by the sea and now a tourist location. We got seats on that bus but it was still uncomfortable because they let lots of people stand in the aisles. It took over an hour when we thought the trip would be shorter; we think there was probably an express bus we didn't know about.

We were exhausted by the time we got to Cascais. We watched people sunning on the beach and walked around a little. We weren't too hungry and the first place we saw was a pizza restaurant so we ate there. Thin crusts, light sauce, perfect for a light dinner. After that we went to the train station and came back to Lisbon. 

In retrospect, it seems we should have anticipated the crowds everywhere from the weekend before through the Monday holiday. We couldn't really change plans for the days but we might have started earlier.