Day Two – Up the Bloody Hill, and Up Again

Day Two – Up the Bloody Hill, and Up Again (December 28, 2010)

Today, we managed a bit of a lie-in, although not as late as expected. We both managed to have our showers and more or less get ready to go before our appointed breakfast delivery time of 9:30am, a time we’d chosen the previous night.

Breakfast was tasty, although a little healthy for a Christmas vacation, consisting of excellent muesli, yogurt, and various bits of fresh fruit. I firmly believe that festive holiday breakfast should include large portions of bacon, possibly eggs, and other unhealthy additives – more on this later...

After filling up on tasty treats, we headed up the rather steep and extremely long hill (it felt steeper and longer this morning, somewhat dehydrated as we were) into the central part of town to catch the bus up to the Moorish and regular castle (there are two).

When the bus finally arrive, we crammed in, having paid our nine euro twenty in small change that we’ve collected over the years of European travel, much to the delight of the bus driver who had to count all of it. The bus was incredibly full, although not nearly as full as it gets in the summer according to Jamie, who’s lived through it before.

I can’t believe the skill and determination of the bus driver – some of those corners would have worried me in a small car, let alone in a giant city bus full of tourists, most of whom were standing. Despite my expectations, we made it up the hill to the Moorish castle, where we had a choice: get off the bus and explore the ruins, or continue on up the hill to the Pena Palace.

Discretion being the better part of valour, and the heavy fog (although at that height cloud may be a better word for it) making the view a bit sub-par, we decided to continue on the bus up to the Pena Palace for some indoor sight-seeing.

We piled off the bus at the top with the rest of the sensible people and were immediately engulfed in a massive and dense cloud. Typically for us, we arrived at a scenic outlook in the middle of the fog (our Lands End adventure earlier in the summer when we couldn’t actually see the end of the land springs to mind). The cloud was so bad that from the bus drop off area we couldn’t actually see the castle itself, and had to rely on signs to lead us up the hill (why is it always up the damn hill?!?).

The view from the top would have been spectacular, had we been able to see it - over the town of Sintra and all the way to the sea evidently. Even from the base of the castle we could barely see the top of the battlements. We stopped for a leisurely espresso and water, in the vain hope that the cloud would lift and we’d be able to see anything at all.

Our plan was thwarted and we gave up – we packed up, took out our cameras, and made the best of it, taking any number of eerie atmospheric photos of the palace as we went. Somewhat bizarrely, the castle was built in the 1800’s by the somewhat romantic kings of Portugal who wanted somewhere to indulge their painting and other pursuits. As it was built as a residence and not an actual defendable castle, it has some rather odd features. As far as we could tell, they just sort of picked and chose features that they thought were suitable for a castle – a bit of Arabic turret here, a bit of crenulation there, maybe a cloister in the corner. Very beautiful, but odd nevertheless.

Many photos taken, many rooms wandered through, we made our way back down to the bus stop and joined an already long queue, despite having missed the previous bus by mere minutes. Thirty minutes later the next bus arrived, and as we had already bought tickets for the return journey, as soon as it cleared out we jumped into the rear doors and sat down, as would be expected in London. Evidently, based on the glares we received from other passengers, this is not the accepted form in Portugal. Oh well...

Back in Sintra, we decided that it was about time for lunch. We didn’t want to eat on the main square, so made our way down the street out of town past the info van (the main info centre is being renovated). We eventually found a rather nondescript little cafe and went in for a meal. As was expected, the wine was unbelievably cheap at about four euro for a half bottle. Lunch itself was a bit odd – grilled sandwiches for both of us, mine containing hot dog sausages, my second in two days, after at least four or five years since having one previously. Not a bad lunch for the price, but strange....

Sufficiently fortified, we wandered around for a bit before heading back to our new favourite little bar, underneath Cafe de Paris (I’d mention the name, but I forget). Yet again we enjoyed a bit too much wine, although at two euro a glass how can it be too much?

Eventually we stumbled back down the hill to the B&B to refresh ourselves and get ready for our fancy dinner planned for the evening. Our fire was laid for us while we relaxed, and we spent a few minutes chatting with Virpi and playing with her dog Pandora, the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life (a ten month old Great Dane, who is possibly the coolest dog in Portugal).

Relaxed and tidied up, Jamie and I walked up and down and back up the road to the far side of Sintra for our reservation at “G-Spot.” This restaurant evidently prides itself on it’s gastronomy, and it’s owner, or at least main waiter guy is a trained sommelier. This apparently explains the horrendous name – apparently its supposed to mean Gastronomy Spot, slight dirty pun unintended...

The food was good for Sintra, fairly average for what we’re used to in London or Paris given the price...the sommelier did steer us right for wine though and for eighteen euro we had a very nice bottle of red (although at six or seven euro the previous day it was a bit hard to justify).

We stumbled back into Sintra for some night shots of the town, then back down the hill to the B&B, where the fire and a bottle of port were waiting for us. Tomorrow we’re back to Lisbon for 5 days. I think I’m going to miss Sintra, especially the incredibly cheap wine and really quite friendly people. Hopefully we’ll get some sun in Lisbon, although coming from London I can’t really complain about the clouds or slight drizzle...

Portugal for New Years - 27 Dec 2010

Day One, December 27, 2010 – To Lisbon, And Beyond!

As is our tradition lately, we’d booked a relatively early flight out of Gatwick airport to Lisbon for our Christmas/New Years trip. The weather in Britain has been atrocious lately, with temperature down to freezing and snow drift up to 3 or 4 centimetres deep, so we were understandably concerned that our flight not make it out. Heathrow I think was still shut and Eurostar was having problems, so our concern was understandable.

Despite the anxiety, our flight was only slight delayed and we made it out of Gatwick more or less on time. The flight itself was alright – we flew Portugal’s national carrier “TAP”, which evidently has one of the best customer satisfaction records in Europe. Compared to budget carriers we’ve flown recently, it was a paragon of class and efficiency. On the other hand, the seats were small, and snacks included a very dry bun and a sausage in a bun (with cheese) – to be fair, that sort of spread on other carriers who shall remain nameless could cost up to €15, not including the coffee and pepsi.

We were blessed on the flight with a row behind us consisting of a very enthusiastic little girl who entertained herself by kicking my seat back and her mother, who had one of those deeply emphasymic coughs that just screams bad flu which she was good enough to share with the rest of the flight – I love it when people don’t cover their mouths when they cough...

We arrived in Lisbon and collected our luggage – our Air Canada suitcase survived yet another trip (it’s getting close to being retired – 8 years of fairly heavy travel has seen ripped handles, missing zipper pulls, bent handles brackets, and frayed corners. Virpi, the owner, collected us at the airport in her massive Land Rover and we made the somewhat mad trip up to Sintra.

At Casa do Valle we got the quick tour of the room, featuring scenic balcony and roaring fireplace before heading back up the giant hill to Sintra old town for an afternoon of exploring and beveraging.

Bizarrely, Sintra is insanely cheap for festive beverage, with two of three rounds costing a grand total of €4 for a large glass of wine for each of us. Similar beverages in London would have cost a minimum of about £10, so on the value for money scale we were well ahead right off the bat.

Sintra is actually a pretty cool little village, perched in its hill overlooking the sea in the distance. It seems to be an interesting mix of tourist tat and isolate mountain hill town. There were a surprising number of deserted and crumbling massive houses that seem to be completely left to the elements, with windows boarded up and roofs falling in – anything as beautiful as these places in London would be worth millions.

After much wandering and photo taking, we made our way to a restaurant, possibly called “Touhle”, just off the main square. It was festive, but suffered from the main affliction that seems to affect all the places we’d been too so far in Sintra – a sullen unwillingness to acknowledge the temperature. We’re Canadian, we we’re used to cold, but when it’s this sort of temperature we at least close the doors. Here, it seems, they fight the cold by leaving all doors and windows open and challenging the weather to do it’s worst (it was about 10 degrees celcius, but that’s bloody cold to have all the doors and windows open, even to a Canadian!).

We ordered the grilled meat platter to share, and ended up waiting until the rest of the restaurant was served before we got our insanely massive portion of meat – the cost of the wine at less than five euro a bottle (not great, but not bad considering) made the wait less painful.

Dinner itself was insane – for 23 euro for the two of us, we had two grilled steaks, two pork chops, four lamb chops, four bright pink sausages (the same it appeared as we had in Germany), a giant portion of rice, and a giant portion of chips. It was incredibly tasty, although as they say, hunger makes the best sauce. The entire bill came to just more than €40 including two bottle of wine and mixed starters. Something similar in London or Paris would be at least twice that price. In terms of value for money, it seems that Portugal can’t be beat.

We made our rather unsteady way back down the hill to our B&B, where our fireplace waited for us. free wifi got us a connection to online radio, cold wine in the fridge, candles lit, lights off. Weloaded a few more logs into the fire, poured a glass of wine, and settled in for the night. I can’t remember the last time we’ve been this relaxed. I think I’m going to like Portugal.

8th Wedding Anniversary in Paris!

Wow, it's been a while since our last update.

We spent the last weekend in Paris to celebrate our 8th anniversary. Time sure flies. Time was spent walking the freezing streets taking pics, eating delicious food and drinking fabulous wine.