Weather: 36º C sunny

Today we caught the train to Sintra north west of Lisbon. It is an area full of castles, royal retreats and houses of the wealthy. Some of the buildings date back to the 8th and 9th century. We had some issues finding the railway station. Firstly we took the metro and got off at the right station. When we asked where to go for the Sintra connection we were told to “go up the steps over there and buy a ticket”. Unless we went up the wrong steps we had to go about 100m down the street to eventually find the station in a building that did not look like a train station nor were there lots of people around or signage to indicate it might be.

Anyway we got there. The trip is about 75-80 minutes and has about 10 stops. At Sintra there is a lot to see – too much to fit into a day if you want to do it properly. We decided we would spend most of our time at the Quinta da Regaleira but before that we caught a bus which went around to some of the other sites – Moorish Castle, the Pena National Palace and others. The roads were very windy and narrow. The bus had to do a number of 3 point turns to get around corners and had to continually avoid people walking the route. Each of the sites was very crowded with cars trying to find a place to park as well as those on foot.

The Quinta da Regaleira was a 15 minute walk out of town. It was the very decorative summer residence of the wealthy Carvalho Monteiro family. It was designed by some of Portugal’s best artists and sculptors. It is a 6 level building but each of the floors is not that large when compared to others we have been in. They were very ornate however and all the documents associated with its design, some 300 drawings, are in tact. Copies of some of them were available for viewing. These included the designs on the ceilings, floors and walls of each room as well as details of carvings and sculptors. They were amazing in their own right.

As well as the house there were other buildings on the grounds including the chapel, coachhouse stableblock and cowsheds, greenhouse, workshops, portals, towers, fountains, walls etc. There were also many grottos, underground tunnels, waterfalls, a lake, wells, aquarium, cistern etc. And of course there was the garden. It was a very hot day out there and walking around under the trees to visit all the sites was as cool as it was going to get outside. It was not overcrowded and the kids that were there were having a great time running around the grottos and on the walls. Some of their antics were a little dangerous we thought but – not our problem – and no ambulances visited while we were there.

Walking back into town we went to a restaurant for lunch we had seen on our way out. Looked like they had cooooool drinks which we were in need of. Anne had her first White Sangria. It was not quite as good as the red one and a little bit sweeter. It still did the trick to cool her down after she also downed a bottle of cold water. Afterwards we walked around the village for a bit then headed for the train. The route back to the train was lined with street sellers at a craft market. Also along the route were many very interesting statues.

Not a long wait for the train as it runs every 15 minutes. Our plan was to get back to Lisbon in time for a Fado Performance at 7pm. As we were heading for the show we got caught up in a small demonstration. We took one of the handouts and translated it when we got back to the hotel. It was basically to announce the call for a demonstration tomorrow at 3pm to protest against the government and austerity measures. There have been some resignations in the government and it looks like the unity between parties is starting to breakdown.

Back to the Fado. This was a 1 hour concert and unlike the Flamenco concert we attended in Seville, there was no meal or drinks. Fado is also only singing while Flamenco is singing and dancing. Fado singing is normally accompanied by someone on a 12 string Portuguese guitar and a traditional guitar and that was the case at our show along with a female and a male singer. The singing is passionate and the female singer appeared to be singing from the back of her throat and it looked very difficult but sounded just wonderful. The songs seemed quite mournful at the beginning but did liven up a little bit. Some of the songs even sounded a bit like ballads.

In the end we had a great day; the pictures speak for themselves.