by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea, you and me, you and me...

When you’re dazed by what the human race has put forth, overwhelmed by evidence of struggles for power, and deflated by visions of ill will and indifference to the plight of others, you can take a bus (the 441 from Sintra) and ask to be dropped off by the sea. The ocean actually. There, the mighty heave of waves and water will remind you that in time, all this will pass.





The beautiful sea. It draws you, it draws most anyone. I watch older men with tired eyes come to look at it for a long while, as if it may offer clarity at times when there is so little of it elsewhere.


True, we weren’t looking for clarity or even necessarily tranquility when we decided to catch the bus to the village of Azenhas do Mar. It happened because our other plans fell through in the most tiresome manner.

We wanted to go to Obidas (which is not by the sea). That’s a two hour train ride from Lisbon. But you needn’t go al the way back to Lisbon; you can, say the books, catch a train from Cacem. We walk the familiar route down to the train station (and to give you a fuller sense of Sintra – it is the kind of town where a homeowner may have this in her back yard...)





... and we board the train in the direction of Lisbon. But when we arrived in Cacem, we find that the train for Obidas wouldn’t be for another four hours. So that we would arrive in Obidas after dark. And it’s not as if you can go to Obidas from Cacem anyway. The schedule says you can, but the agent assures us that you must first go from Cacem to Mira Sintra and only then might you be able to connect with a train to Obidas.

Confusing? Exceptionally so.


And so after a failed attempt at train travel to Obidas, we retreated back to Sintra and considered our options.

The sea!

Not that getting to the sea is without its own maze of complications. Take the 441 bus. From here? No, from Portela de Sintra. You can take a bus or train to that Sintra. Which is really an extension of this Sintra. Or walk. From there, just take the 441.

Eventually, we made it to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Just north of the western most point of the European continent.

We half follow the GR hiking trail, and partly our own inclinations, going from one village (Azenhas do Mar)...













...to the next (Praia das Macas), along a rocky coastline that fights constant battles with the sea. The sea always wins.

We watch fishermen cast lines, very long lines to the waters below. In Madison, the fishermen are drilling holes through the ice to cast their lines into the waters of the lake. So much effort there, here too, just to cast a line and wait.









Oh, but what a wait. We pass a few old cars parked by the cliffs. The pole is set against the rocks, the owner of one sits in his small, dented van and listens to the strains of opera. Another takes out his pipe and holds on to his line. No one is rushed, no one is bothered.










Foam. As in Cascais, the ocean spews foam. Ed looks at it and wonders where it comes from.





The sea makes you wonder about things. Quietly. You may as well be quiet. You can’t be heard over the noise of the waves anyway.






We stop at an oceanside place – an eatery called 1888. A seafood dining room. I order a simple salad with shrimp and tomatoes and it is so good – drizzled with an olive oil, so simple, so delicious.





At the bus stop, people help us figure out the time of the next 441. To take us back to Sintra. Or rather Portela de Sintra, So that we could walk back to our Sintra and the small guest house on the hill.





Late at night we walk down the hill, eat a basic and good dinner at a very basic, very traditional, regional place (it’s called Restaurante Regional de Sintra) and when we emerge, the world is hidden and made silent by fog. Dense, wet fog.

the green hills of Sintra

I have to say that examining gaudy interiors of buildings and palaces where the rich and royal once lived and played  ranks low on Ed’s list of favorite things to do when traveling. And truthfully, I’m only a little more enthusiastic about it myself. We both love history and even visuals depicting it, but walking through many ornate spaces – room after room of an extravagantly decorated existence feels stifling and after a while, I tune it all out. (Ed I don’t think ever tunes it in).

I don’t feel the same about gardens. An artfully designed outdoor space is, to me at least, dazzling. Richly planted landscapes, with an abundance of trees and vines and flowering plants are sensual and soothing and I can walk endlessly through them, listening to the sounds of the outdoors, taking in the smell of a natural world.

Sintra offers both: palaces, castles, manor houses on the one hand and elaborate gardens and forested parks surrounding them on the other.


It seemed warmer in the morning sun and so I take the brave step of leaving my jacket behind as we set out to explore the major sights.

They’re not easy to get to and initially, we can’t seem to find our way out of the maze of narrow roads. What does the map say – I’ll ask. The map doesn’t help very much in a three dimensional town – Ed’ll tell me.

And so we end up approaching the first – the Sintra National Palace from the back – where years of moist air have left dark marks on the cement walls.









The Palace faces the main square of the old town, but it’s a chaotic space of many elevations and it lacks the feeling of openness and magnificence.





 We linger just for a little while, study the maps again and hike along the winding road (with an occasional pause to admire a gush of water or a splash of green)...





....to the next great sight – the Quinta da Regaleira – a summer residence of the Monteiro family, built in the neo-manueline style toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Richly decorated. I don’t know how else to describe it. Beyond extravagant.



as viewed from our bedroom window




and now, from close quarters



The entrance fee covers both the gardens and the interiors and we begin with a walk through the gardens. You have to build your nerve up to enter the residence itself.

And it’s not that the gardens bespeak of simplicity. There’s a story of the cosmos linking the vast terraces into one coherent (or incoherent, depending on your inclination) story and I’ll not mention the details except that we have mythology, Dante’s Inferno, mysticism, philosophy – all depicted through passages (including subterranean ones), lakes, grottos, wells – you name it, it’s there.









And I have to say, predictably perhaps, I like the walk. Of course, I’m going to be delighted anytime I can find something blooming in the middle of January.



















And the moss-covered stone, the Cyprus, chestnut, oak, the ferns – so many ferns! – all create an extraordinary green space that is at once overwhelming and soothing.





I do balk at entering a well through a dark underground tunnel (you’re to then climb out of it through the stairs along its side), but Ed can coax me to do strange things at such times and so I manage to overcome my distaste for closed and dark spaces and follow along there too. Groping through the darkness.









And the manor house? Well, can I leave you with just two photos? One gives a sense of the interior, the other shows off the absurdity of it all (it’s not a mere library – it’s a room imitating a library and it has strips of mirror on the floor so that it looks like you have even more books than the shelves would have it.









Odd place. Though I suppose fun to sketch. And it does offer nice views onto the hills of Sintra and beyond.











We leave the manor and now it is early afternoon and the sun has nearly hidden itself behind a gray layer of cloud. I pause for a tea and a cake at the only expensive café in all of Portugal (who knew)...





...and we continue on to the third big sight – the Palace of Pena – again a nineteenth century marvel, built for the royal family of Portugal (the last royal lived there during his brief reign at the beginning of the twentieth century).

The Palace of Pena is perched on a mountain summit and it’s a five kilometer trip up a winding road. We take the city bus. Once there, we hesitate. Explore the palace, or the park? There may not be time for both.

We opt for the park.









It’s a good call. We do walk up to the palace and poke around its monstrously opulent exterior...





...and then we retreat into the deep forest – Cyprus, sequoia, ginkgo, and the ever lovely camellia. And of course the beautiful ferns and mosses.





It is a sublime hike from the palace to the next summit of the High Cross and we have the path to ourselves. From the peak...


 


...we can look back at the palace...





...and to the ocean – gray now against a gray but not altogether sunless sky.





So this is Sintra. Gaudy, but subdued by nature. Lovely, especially when explored on the outside. Oddly grand, especially from afar.


In the evening we walk down the hill for dinner at a place called (curiously) “the G Spot.” It’s a partnership of three young men – two of them cook, one attends to the tables. They do superb new Portuguese (local, seasonal) foods. Crustacean soup with raviolis, sole over cannelloni, richly chocolate something or other. All delicious!





The walk back up is invigorating. An occasional light will illuminate a house or a courtyard...





...and a street lamp will help you spot the irregularity in the road.


 


Funny how easy it is to get used to it all – the constant up and down, the rough surface, the dark night.

leaving gold

(from Evora, Portugal)

Anyone worth their travel beans is going to make it to Sintra on their trip to Portugal. Though one Evora native claimed there are 59 monuments to see in his town (and it will remain our favorite place to visit here, I’m sure), Sintra really brings in tourism. It may not be the sheer number of sights, but certainly it has the WOW factor.

Still, it’s kind of sad (for me) to leave Evora. If ever there was a lovely place to stay – one where you have it all down solid: where the good treats and foods are, what the sights are like, how to spend one hour at a car rental place waiting for the forms to be completed and really grow to like the experience, how to fill up with a breakfast that will keep you going all day long, where to pick up the hot roasted chestnuts when the craving hits – Evora is it.

I feel almost as if we are leaving family when we say goodbye to the manager – the same guy who had stayed up late into the night chatting Ed up as to why their Internet seemed to hiccup for the past two weeks.

We have our breakfast...





...and our final walk past the great monuments of Evora – Roman temples and walls, ancient cathedrals, a beautiful university and as I later look at my photos, it strikes me that there is so much yellow in each one – as if truly everything we did there was golden.

So, our last walk through Evora (remember, accent on the E and don’t rest too long on the A).
































Then, a brief time out on the patio of our Albergaria (all those lovely yellow windows)...















... and we’re off, chugging our bags over to the bus terminal... (past one last good look at the Roman Aqueduct...)





... for the ride back to Lisbon, where we make our way to the train station, to catch the commuter line to Sintra.


(from Sintra, Portugal)

The train from Lisbon to Sintra is packed. Ed and I have this habit of running to get on trains that are about to depart and this is not the first time that one or the other gets wedged in a closing door. I feel the eyes of the commuters are on us as we find a spot to rest our bags for the 45 minute ride.

By the time we reach the final stop – Sintra – we are the only ones left in the car.

We get off and look around.





Sintra wraps itself around deeply forested hills. It feels wet – as if we’re in a rainforest. It feels hidden, too. There is the section by the rail and there are streets, cobbled and narrow, heading up mountains and somewhere there is a center, but we’ve not seen it yet.





Why do I keep thinking that the Sintra is sinister-a?

I talk to the agent at the tourist booth. She’s grumpy and I’m thinking their pay must be horrid because of the three tourist information agents I’ve spoken to in Portugal (the other two – in Lisbon and Evora), two have been very very grumpy. I ask for some literature but, surrounded that she is by pamphlets and such, she tells me she only has one map. I already have that map. She has no further wisdoms to offer and so we move on.

Our small guest house is up the hill and it is one steep climb. My little carry-on has protested all along the ramble through Portugal’s cobbled surfaces and I am wondering if it’ll stand up to the challenge here.

Finally, half an hour later, we are at the Casa Miradouro. I can tell that it is the type of place that will make Ed sulk, because it is beautifully ordered and prim and it puts me in the frame of wanting to reign him in – watch that carpet, don’t crumple the paper... until he retreats to bed with his computer, where he can do no harm.

But the views! If ever there was a room with views, this is it. We have the large balcony room – the one with windows on three sides, looking over the castle, the mansion, the mountains, and seemingly all of Portugal.








(to the east)


We ask our hostess about dinner and she sends us down the hill, by the Town Hall to a place that is a Tea House or a Restaurant or both (A Raposa), in any case, it is the lowest of low seasons and so we are the only patrons and the food selection is limited to three dishes. The cook explains this to us and she speaks quite good English. The waitstaff person (who, it turns out, is also the owner and a tennis champ) speaks Portuguese and Spanish and actually this does not exhaust our potential for communication because it appears that the cook was born and raised in Poland.





A Brazilian restaurateur and a Polish cook. Friends for years (they both lived in Brazil). She’s here with a husband and three daughters and she has the usual love/hate for Poland. (The restaurateur is here with a girlfriend, and he has a love for red wine and young women and a hate for wives, having sampled too many in the past.) Rarely have I met an expat from my homeland whose language (and I mean that in the broadest terms) I understood so completely. (I’m sure Ed found equal rapport with the restaurateur on the subject of the novia.)

The food? Oh, it is excellent. The cook has professional credentials – a former student of the French Culinary Institute in New York, she knows her knives and sauces. Shrimpy noodles, lamb couscous – fantastic!





In between dishes, we talk about what it’s like being from Poland and living elsewhere.

It is a long conversation.


The night is dark, or maybe it’s that light hides completely behind Sintra’s hills. The walk uphill is less strenuous the second time around. Could it be that I'm warming to the place already? Fickle hearts.