Sintra

In hindsight, Easter weekend might not have been the best time to visit Sintra. Flights to Lisbon had been quite cheap over the 4 day bank holiday, and as I hadn’t visited Portugal before it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Five nights in Lisbon felt a little much so we decided on three nights in Sintra, the apparently magical wonderland in the hills full of palaces, castles and gardens, before heading back to Lisbon for the two final nights.

We arrived late on the Thursday so didn’t do much else other than go out for food. Vegetarian food is hard to come by here, unless you eat fish. We ended up at Restaurante Alcobaça where I had a pretty average lasagne, and Riz had a similarly mediocre cod in cream cheese sauce. It did the job and the service was nice, and the desserts (cinnamon and sugar crepe and rice pudding) really hit the spot.

Friday started a little late because we still needed to check in to our apartment. By the time we’d stopped off for breakfast it was 10.30 and the town was heaving with tourists. The bus stop to go to the Palacio da Pena was easily 100 people, but we waited anyway to see how big the buses were and how frequently they came. Turns out not very frequent and they already arrived full so only a handful of people got on. We didn’t want to spend the day in a queue for a bus so instead we walked the short 20 minute journey to the Quinta da Regaleira estate and gardens. We had a lovely walk in the sunshine through the gardens and grottos, it was well worth the visit. It’s worth wearing comfortable shoes as it is hilly and can be slippery inside the grottos. The house itself was very crowded and we found ourselves shuffling and being elbowed around which wasn’t as enjoyable.

After this we took the 435 bus to Monserrate, very easy to find because the bus stops are directly outside both tourist attractions, and here we had a nice lunch in the café and a quiet walk around the gardens, even basking in the sun on the lawns outside. I get the impression that this is one of the lesser attractions compared to the Moorish Castle and Pena, but it is beautiful and well worth visiting.

Once again the evening was spent trying to find a decent veggie meal. Sintra is dead at night time, which suggests to me that the hustle in the day is due to day trippers from Lisbon. We did actually luck out though, with an Easter set menu at Incomum, a 20 minute walk from the palace towards the train station. They kindly let me swap out the fish/meat option for a vegetarian risotto, and they arranged for a vegetarian appetiser as well. The menu was only 23 Euros and included:

• Bread, olives, sea salt and olive oil
• Spinach and goats cheese (Riz had mussels)
• Azeitão Cheese crumble w/ salad and fruit
• Asparugus Risotto w/ Azores Cheese and Aroma Truffles (Riz had confit cod fish, spinch and chickpea puree)
• Coconut pudding with pineapple carpaccio

I can’t recommend this place enough, we didn’t need a reservation but they do take them.

This was Good Friday, and as we ate there was a procession outside with people dressed as Romans carrying the cross. I got the impression that it was very much for the locals as opposed to tourists and it was a very serious and sombre affair, we caught the end of it outside the palace and it was a little disturbing.

The following day we planned to go early to the bus stop to get to Pena early. Walking is an option but it takes about an hour, it’s a constant uphill and apparently it’s not well signposted so we didn’t pursue that idea.

The day started well, we were at the bus stop for 9.20, first bus due at 9.30 and Pena opens at 10 (in the peak season it opens at 9.30). Although we weren’t the first there, we got on the first bus and made our way to Pena. Upon arrival we were greeted with a snaking queue for the ticket offices which took us until about 10.45. Once inside the gates we thought we had finished with the crowds as the grounds are so big. We were wrong. At the entrance to the palace is a queue to get tickets checked, when you get through this you pretty much immediately join another queue to actually go inside, (by which time it’s past midday) only to shuffle round a few pretty boring state rooms before coming out again.

Maybe the crowds put me off, but nothing inside that palace is worth looking at. The exterior looks fantastic, a real fairytale castle. I should add at this point, the weather was the total opposite to the day before and there was a thick mist and drizzly showers, which made the exterior much harder to see and appreciate, and the mist prevented us from seeing much of the grounds either. It’s definitely a place to visit in the sunshine, but the crowds really did ruin it for me.

My overall feeling of Sintra is positive and I did enjoy walking around a lot of the natural beauty that the area offers, I can only hope that there is a quieter time to visit.