Portugal Day 3 – Lisbon and Sintra

Day 3 (19/10/2008)

Today it was time to finally check out Lisbon. The weather was good, there weren’t many people around seeing it was Sunday and I had the entire day.

Started the day off again at Cais do Sodre, walked towards the Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square) where the statue of King José I resides. Then it was onwards to downtown Lisbon where I found the Elevador de Santa Justa which was a tower in the center with 360 degree views of the city. It’s a pity they put a café at the top of the tower with absolutely no room to move.

The Castelo De Sao Jorge (Sao Jorge Castle) was the next point of interest so I started looking for the tram to get up there as it did look quite high and wasn’t in the mood to walk up there in the heat. However that didn’t eventuate and before I did find a tram up to the castle, I was already at the top. That’s what you get for walking around randomly and no direction.

I did venture inside the castle grounds and admired the view from up above and took a bit of time to relax under the shade. The Tower Of Ulysess was inside the grounds and might I add it is not for those with a fear of height. The steps can be precariously slippery and with one stumble, you could seriously hurt yourself. You can go around the entire tower and see Lisbon and surrounds at 360 degrees.

That was it for me in terms of Lisbon and now it was time to find the train station to Sintra. The train station Rossio is cleverly disguised. It doesn’t even look like a train station; it looks more like a museum. When you go inside, you will see elevators that go up to the trains and where you purchase your tickets.

Sintra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its Romantic Architecture. It takes about 40 minutes by train from Lisbon to Sintra at a cost of 4.80EUR. When you arrive at Sintra, its about 10 minute walk to the city centre where you will immediately see the palace grounds and the hoards of tourist eating at the restaurants. There’s a few alley ways with shops and eateries but other than that, there isn’t much else.

So what should you do? Well take the bus up (or if you are energetic, walk up) to Moorish Castle or Pena Castle and gaze at the amazing views of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park and the Sintra town down below. Moorish castle itself is a wonderful castle to explore. It’s location on top of the mountain has a great vantage point in all corners of the surrounding areas. Just take notice that it can be an effort to climb the stairs to various lookout points but it is not that demanding.

When heading back to the train station to go back to Lisbon, the traffic in the small town was chaotic. It barely moved and I was wondering where everyone was going to. What a nightmare! Speaking of transport, there was a bizarre incident at a train station on the way back to Lisbon.

Most of the train stations had platforms, underground walkways or bridges to cross from one platform to the other. Well not at this particular train station. You had to guess which platform the train would arrive at. If you guessed wrong, you would have to run to either end of the train (8 carriages in length) and run back around to board the train.

So that is what happened, people were on the wrong side of the platform, and with the amount of people on that platform, I am still amazed everyone managed to get on. Some people were running on the tracks just to get around the other side, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, was I really in Portugal?

Back in Lisbon, it was an easy bus ride to the Airport now that I knew where the actual bus stop was to the Airport. I was starving at the time and luckily I didn’t eat anything outside where you check in because there was crap to eat. Normally this is not the case at other airports. So I took a gamble and went through security into the waiting terminal and it paid off because there were plenty of restaurants you could choose from!

Good thing there were plenty of food options because my plane was delayed by 3 hours. Since it is delayed 3 hours, I’ve missed the last train into Kings Cross station so I had to find an alternative way to get back. The options were to stay at the hotel and go to work in the morning or catch the bus back into Victoria and then catch another bus home. It was such a bad delay and by the time I got to London it was about 1am.

There happened to be a bus waiting outside back to Victoria which I caught, then got another bus to Hackney before wandering around the area for a taxi. I didn’t get home till 4am and I was due to get up in 3 hours to go to work. Ah I absolutely hate delays just like everyone else with a passion! Bad way to end a great trip.

smiles