to Obidos by trains

Days of intense work are just a hare’s breath away. Now is the time to squeeze all last bits of pleasure out of being in a place that is far from home.

I remember when Ed first joined me on some of my travels, I told him how I had always had a lust for a little summer house far away from home. It had not been in the cards earlier and I was half wondering if I should make it a goal to save for some such tiny piece of heaven. One room. Not more than two. Maybe in Brittany? Or the Languedoc?

Ed, perceptively I think, commented that I was exactly the wrong person to have a place to return to time and again. But maybe I would like it? I asked then. I doubt it, he said. Even the smallest place is an encumbrance. You’re better off spending money on a bed and breakfast. Or carrying a tent.


Our last days in Portugal. I’m thinking that I have this complicated train connection figured out. We set out to visit Obidos.

There are wisps of fog in the hills this morning. I see them from the bedroom window.





And I see them from the train window as well. Ah, windmills. Of today, of yesterday.










We’re on the third train now and we’re feeling pretty smug about it too. The tiny two-car train came (and then departed) earlier than the schedule indicated, but we managed to be there waiting (we did a lot of waiting, with long layovers, just in case) and now we’re heading north, with a local populace that travels this way from the smallest of villages to towns where groceries can be purchased, errands taken care of.

Two hours later, we are in Obidos. Or rather at the foot of the hill, at the summit of which you’ll find the medieval town of Obidos.





It is a walled town – quite a bit larger, but not dissimilar from Monsaraz (the hilltop village we loved so much to the southeast of Evora).














The walls are in good shape and we take the time to walk the entire perimeter of the town along their stony ledge.




















We have five hours before the wee train will be making its way back (to Mira Sintra Melecas, where we would connect to Cacem and then to Sintra). There are churches to see – beautiful, with Baroque tile coverings...










Alleys to poke around in...





















...and eventually I suggest a light lunch – at a café-restaurant that appears to draw a young and old crowd...










The fog is being pushed back by a warm sun and Ed takes some time to rest on a stone wall and read while I window shop. And shop, actually. There are a few ceramics stores on Obidos and one of them has these:





And one chocolate shop allows you to purchase an Obidos treat – chocolate cups into which the clerk pours a local cherry liquor.





Our train will be passing through just before six. We watch the light fade in the way that it does in hill towns: at first, warmly, in hues of gold, then casting darker shadows on the white houses.









We find a muddy path leading down the hill and we follow that instead of the road, but really, the station here is so small that it has no paved road running to it. And it has no inside space, no place to actually wait.





So we take a short stroll up the road to look back at Obidos from a distance, there towering over cherry orchards.





And then Ed sits by the old wooden station shed (Is it a shed? A place to offload freight in the past?) and I pace.

 

It can be cool in the evenings – forties maybe? ...and I managed to pick up the Portuguese winter sniffles already so keeping warm is a priority. Back and forth until the train pulls in, throwing a sparkle on the tiled station walls.





Our connections are easier on the return. Shortly after eight we are in Sintra. And since yesterday’s “Regional” restaurant is right by the station, we eat there again. Delicious “traditional” shrimp (the waiter explains: we pan cook them in olive oil until just pink, we remove them and the oil, we add butter, garlic, then a hot sauce and mustard – that’s it!):




...and a grilled sea bream.





In so many ways this was such a quiet, simple day. We rode the trains, we walked, we rode the trains back. On the return trip, we sat in a car with a group of high school kids – boys and girls with long dark hair, flirting, talking, laughing, so hard, in the way that you no longer laugh ever again after your younger years. They had such a confident happiness about them! As if train rides like this one are nothing unusual – and the years would continue in this same way, and there would always be laughter.

In this I find the greatest reassurance: that an ordinary train ride can be so joyful for these kids. To be for a few minutes in their space is perhaps the best way to end a travel journey.

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.