Portugal – Day 11 – Drive to Sintra
Drove three hours from Pine Cliffs resort to Sintra. It was a bittersweet departure from Pine Cliffs resort after for beautiful days there.
Day 11 Itinerary
From the Pine Cliffs Resort:
Last picture in front of the Pine Cliffs Hotel
Driving north to Sintra we passed a couple of interesting power towers with nesting birds
We passed olive trees, cork trees, and citrus groves. Occasionally on a hill top we would see the remains of an old stone windmill
Sintra is very different climate wise than anywhere else in Portugal. Up in the mountains and very cool. Lots of heavy trees, unlike anywhere else in Portugal. Interesting and beautiful building architecture with palm, pine, sequoia and magnolia trees everwhere. First magnolias I have seen anywhere in Portugal.
Arrived in Sintra a little too late in the day to make it the Pena Palace, so after checking in to the Sintra Boutique Hotel we opted to visit another palace within walking distance of the hotel.
We received a nice corner hotel room and they brought french macaroons and chocolates as a welcoming gift.
With a couple of hours before dinner we headed off to the The Quinta da Regaleira palace which surprised me to be remarkably interesting. The palace was built by Carvalho Monteiro around 1905 and after a couple of different owners was acquired by the town of Sintra in 1997 which turned it into a museum. The architecture of the building is referred to as Neo-Manueline style but to me it looked very Gothic. All of the buildings on the grounds of the palace have magnificent limestone carvings. The overhead buttresses of the doorways, the ceilings, and the towers of the buildings all have stone sculptures.
To me, the most interesting sight on the palace grounds is the Initiation Well. It has a mysterious design, without any clear purpose. At 88 feet deep, the staircase, often referred to as an inverted tower, was never built to serve as a water resource at all. It was actually built for secret ceremonial purposes!
This little nondescript restaurant was probably our favorite for most authentic Portuguese cuisine.
Lauri’s final thoughts of the day:
I love it that every restaurant serves their food hot and not mediocre warm like so many American restaurants. The use of fresh cilantro in recipes is a big surprise to me. Even our cooking class used cilantro in three of the dishes we prepared.
I didn’t think I could find a city more vertical than Lisbon but I found it in Sintra.
Mark’s final thoughts of the day:
I finally broke down and agreed to follow tourists and went to Quinta da Regaleira palace. I was pleasantly surprised with my experience and I found the Inversion Well to be really cool. Not only is Initiation Well mysterious but there are other secret passageways all around the grounds. We found numerous outdoor stone staircases tucked around corners that led to other buildings on the palace grounds.
The Regional restaurant served a tasty cheese shaped like a big marshmallow called Queuinho locally made from goat, sheep and cow’s milk.
