Panoramic Portugal - Part 4: Sintra

About a 45-minute drive out of Lisbon up into the Sintra mountain range, is the town of Sintra overlooking the Atlantic ocean. The whole town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a huge tourist attraction, but for good reason. Imagine a place where kings and royalty built their summer "cottages," each home's owner trying to transcend their neighbor.

With only a half of a day to spend in Sintra, we chose to visit the attraction recommended by our hosts: the Quinta da Regaleria. The manor itself wasn't the most impressive in town, but the surrounding exotic gardens were spectacular. The villa's original owner was a Brazilian coffee tycoon, who had the estate built to be his own magical hideaway. The gardens achieve just that.

The grand residence of Quinta da Regaleria

With secret passageways, a romantic chapel, and hidden grottos, it's not your average garden. Perhaps the most exciting feature is the inverted tower. Its spiral staircase descends the well down 88 feet and leads to a concealed passage at the bottom connecting to a series of tunnels that run the length of the gardens.

Inside the chapel

Walkways

Stone-built structures like this are placed throughout the gardens. The top of this turret provided panoramic vistas out across Sintra.

The entrance on the right leads to a hidden fountain.

Looking down at "waterfall lake" with it's playful stepping stones that cross over to an underground tunnel.

Looking down to the bottom of the inverted tower

Looking up at the top as we worked our way down the spiral staircase

One of the tunnels leads to the exit of a cave behind a small waterfall.

A tunnel lighted by a string of white lights

Another exit

The lower part of the garden near the manor is neatly landscaped, but the upper parts are densely wild and unorganized.

Ceramic tiles on one wall of the manor

A photograph, presumably of the original resident and his gang

A footpath along the side of the manor

We spent several hours exploring the gardens discovering its many hidden treasures. Our time constraints (and the hordes of tourists) prevented us from visiting any of the other numerous castles and palaces in Sintra. I feel like I could have easily spent an entire day or two there sightseeing.

Panoramic Portugal - Part 3: The Beaches

Bracing ourselves against a crisp, cold wind blowing up off the ocean, we looked out across the vast blue sea knowing that just across that great expanse was America on the other side. We were standing on the edge of a cliff just up the coast from the westernmost point of mainland Europe, and, despite the heat of summer, we were greeted with a blast of cold air, which created patches of fog obscuring parts of our view.

Ericeira Beach with the fog.
It was like standing in front of a window unit A/C turned on high with the cold air blasting up off the frigid water.

Ericeira Beach

Despite the cold air and the frigid water, sunbathers pitched umbrellas and wind guards to lay comfortably in the sun while some very brave swimmers ventured into the waves. Not wanting to squander the opportunity to catch some waves on some very famous breaks, Mr. Bloomsbury acquired a surfboard and wetsuit and paddled out.

Ericeira Beach

Ericeira Beach

After we'd had our fill of the sand and sea, we drove along the coast, stopping to take in the views.

Such a drastically different coastline than Florida's beaches. The public parking area is above and a narrow trail leads down to the water.



We parked at a less populated beach access and found a path down these cliffs to the water.

This is overlooking a surf school. The area of Ericeira is known for having world class surf breaks and international competitions. Finding surfboard and wetsuit rental was fairly easy. 

Closer in to Lisbon, we discovered the less remote (read: more populated) beaches of Cascais and Estoril, which are located on the banks of the Tagus estuary. Lined with bars, cafes, and castles, this coastline offered a different type of beauty.

The Estoril coastline

A castle on the beach

The views just never ended!

Panoramic Portugal - Part 2: Belém

Another favorite neighborhood of Lisbon we visited is called Belém. It's located on the mouth of the Tagus River and provides some stunning scenery.


Rua de Belem, Belem's main street and historical avenue.
A picturesque row of 160-year-old buildings now surviving as cafes and shops.

A mass of flowers over the entrance

Laundry hanging in the breeze

Pastel-colored buildings

The tiles, the old wooden door

Perhaps the most important café of Rua de Belém is the famous pastry shop Fábrica de Pasteis de Belém, home of the Portuguese egg tart made with flaky pastry.

Inside the café where they were busy cranking out thousands of the pastel de nata.
You can get them from any bakery in Lisbon, but these are said to be some of the best.

Here they are. Beautiful, creamy, deliciousness. Served with cinnamon and powdered sugar.

We got our pastel de nata to go and ate them in the nearby park, which overlooked the river.



A tree-lined walkway in the Praça do Império, an avenue of open spaces and gardens, with a central fountain

A beautiful fountain in front of the Jerónimos Monastery

After our treat and some playground time for the kids, we walked over to the Monument to the Discoveries, located on the river bank.

As we approached the monument, I thought it was a cross, but when we reached the site I realized it's actually a sword.

The monument commemorates the explorers who set out from Portugal and features dozens of figures from Portuguese history.

Panoramic Portugal - Part 1: Lisbon

Summer seems so long ago, especially with snow on the ground now (finally!) and the temps in the 20s. Perhaps now is the best time to relive some warmer memories. (I had actually started writing this post in November. Then we went to Rome for Thanksgiving, then the kids and I were sick for 2 weeks, then family and friends visited for Christmas....I blinked and somehow it's the middle of January already!)

We ended our summer with a seaside adventure in Lisbon, Portugal. We decided to visit Lisbon because some long-time friends of ours were temporarily living there, and we wanted to take advantage of their local knowledge and language skills. They invited us to stay with them in their home, they showed us around their neighborhood, and they were our tour guides for our entire stay. All we basically had to do was book the flight and reserve a car!

Welcome to Lisbon!

Our trip can be divided into 4 parts: New City, Old City, Beach, and Sintra.

New City
First stop was the Lisbon Oceanarium. The building itself is built over the water with great views of the surrounding sea. The small children loved getting to see the different kinds of sea life in one of the world's biggest aquariums; their favorite was the giant sunfish.

Lisbon Oceanarium

From the Oceanarium, we took a cable car that carried us up over the Parque Das Nacoes (Nations Park, where the 1998 World Expo was held). From here were breathtaking views of modern buildings and bridges and rows of flags of different nations.

View from the cable car

Modern buildings and rows of international flags

Walking through the Park of Nations

We decided to take the one-way cable car ride so we could walk back along the riverfront park and shopping area.

Old City
In contrast to the contemporary architecture of the new city, the old city had a more Central or South American feel. European-styled buildings covered with decorative ceramic tiles in every pattern lined narrow hilly streets. The yellow electric tram, an icon of Lisbon, rumbled past pastel-colored buildings.

Yellow electric tram - an icon of Lisbon

Building covered in ceramic tiles

More buildings

Some of the buildings were crumbling.

A pastel blue building

This is the shop where we bought some souvenir tiles.

More pretty tiles

Pretty sidewalk

Our wanderings took us to Commerce Square where the Portuguese had regulated customs and port activities. Yellow buildings line the square in a U-shape along three sides, which are the city's administrative buildings. We then proceeded through the grand city arch into a shopping district. With the evidence of such successful maritime exploration, I could just imagine ships at port bursting with exotic spices and gold from afar.

Commerce Square with St. George's Castle perched on the top of the hill in the distance.

The grand city arch

Our tour of the city concluded with a beautiful sunset of the Tagus River punctuated by a silhouette of the Christ the King statue.