Castles and Coastlines
Daytrips from Lisbon to Cascais and Sintra
There are two towns near Lisbon that are popular day trip destinations for tourists. The first is the seaside town of Cascias, and the second is the mountainous region of Sintra.
Cascias is a well developed coastal resort town known for having sandy beaches. When we visited, the weather was overcast and (being the beginning of November) wasn’t the warmest. There used to be free bike rentals but that no longer exists; all are now paid. Since the weather wasn’t great, we decided not to rent bikes and instead chose to walk just the beginning of the coastal path.
Along the way we found an old stone bridge crossing a nearly dried out riverbed. From the marine breakwater, the scene looked picturesque and medieval with an octagonal tower in the background.
We made it as far as the Boca do Inferno before turning around. There is a well-developed tourist stop there to see the ocean front and a natural archway. The day was breezy enough that the waves splashed up against the cliffs.
At the time we didn’t find it especially scenic and it reminded us that we’ve been to many, many different coastlines across the world, some that are similar, some better, some worse.
The next day we visited Castelo de S. Jorge in the heart of Lisbon. Built on top of a prominent hill, the medieval castle is one of the main tourist sites of Lisbon. While we were waiting in line, we heard a woman in front of us tell her husband how excited she was to be there.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find it too impressive. The problem was that there is no grand view of the castle from the outside. Once you go inside there are a lot of tall leafy trees in the many courtyards that obstruct any view of the battlements. While there aren’t a lot of photo ops, it was still fun to run around the battlements and peer over the walls. We still prefer Japanese castles, but seeing a medieval castle in Europe every now and again is still exciting.
The next day we took a day trip out to Sintra to see the Castelo dos Mouros.
Whereas the Castelo de S. Jorge was built like a traditional medieval castle with a moat on a hill in a city, the Castelo dos Mouros is a bizarre line of walls draped high up on a rocky hill. There are many similarities to the Great Wall of China in that the wall snakes over the hills with green shrubs and boulders on each side.
We couldn’t figure out why someone would build a castle here as it’s so far away from any farmland and while the terrain helps with the defense, there are so many boulders and rocks inside the wall that there’s barely any space for the occupants.
Yuki brought along her blue dress and we took photos on the walls.
From Sintra train station there’s a bus that takes tourists along a predefined one-way loop to several tourist attractions. We bought the hop-on/hop-off ticket to visit the Park and National Palace of Pena just up the street.
Pena Palace is a bit of an odd place. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugual (others including Jerónimos Monastery and Belém Tower), it is a romantic castle that seems like it was just built to look like a fancy façade. Built between 1842–1854 as a royal summer residence, the conglomeration of different architectural styles makes it feel quite erratic.
It’s possible to pay to go inside but online research suggested that it was just fancy halls and gold trimmed furniture that wasn’t particularly worthwhile. Instead, we walked down to the lakes (which were more like dirty ponds) and on the way we saw winning photos from a popular photography competition. Some of the photos were really nice but others didn’t seem special, and we were surprised they had won. We noticed that the cameras they used were not high-end but rather consumer grade. So, at the lakes, I made an attempt at a winning photograph. I failed, thus proving that those winners did indeed have something going for them.
