Just another great day in paradise. We docked on-time to great weather and a fantastic city. It must be my lucky day as we have a tour booked and I don't think I’m going to have to walk too much today – my calves are just killing me with all those steps we had to walk down in Gibraltar.

Things worked well again and the internet is still great in my books – we booked this tour on-line and there he was on time - Jose (or as his friends called him Za) with a sign in hand "Mr. Tom" we were ready on our Lisbon – Sintra tour in his brand new Mercedes van with all the creature comforts including a hot-spot wi-fi capability. Who could ask for anything more. He even had water bottles for us that came out of his refrigerated console – what a deal!

We headed directly to the town of Sintra (15th century) about 35 miles outside of Lisbon. The main interest here was to see the Palace of Pena which was built by Don Fernando II (referred to as the “artist king”) and his wife Dona Maria II back in the 1830’s. There is also a Moorish Castle that was built in the 9th Century A.D. that was on the same property. We first stopped in the town of Sintra before heading up to the castle, which was located high atop of the mountains overlooking Sintra, Lisbon and the Atlantic Ocean. While castle has no real distinct building style, it’s kind of a mixture of a number of different styles but certainly very heavy on the Moorish influences. The grounds itself, while originally barren at the time of construction now has some eighty-five hectares of exceptional geological/trees/shrubs and plants from all over the world. The pictures just don’t do this place justice.

From Sintra we headed to Cascais (pronounced Cas-ki) and drove along Tagus River. Cascais is a small town west of Lisbon situated like an amphitheater facing a picturesque bay full of boats of all sorts. The beach was packed with people – apparently it was Mother’s Day here in Lisbon. There are some very lovely homes and quite number of abandoned castles that dot Oceanside – some worth as much as 6 million Euros or about 10 million U.S. We have put any property on hold at this time.

Our our way into town went through Ebroil (houses one of the largest casino’s in Europe owned by the Asian billionaire Stanley Hu) stopping quickly at the following attractions - Jeronimos Monastery which was built in the 1500’s - (resting place of Vasgo de Gama), Belem Tower which was built in the 1500’s as well and has been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage monument and St. Jorge’s Castle. Jose felt that we just had to have one of Lisbon’s famous custard tarts so he took us into one his favorite bakeries, got us a table and told us to order some Pasteis de Bellem and Queijadas Finis da Piriquita – they were amazing but it put us in jeopardy for the 4:30 p.m. gangway lift. We arrived with just seconds to go. Whoops, mistake we had one hour left before the boat pulled the gangway – we b*****ed up on our time.

Getting prepped for dinner at 8:15 p.m. – and maybe a little casino or some B.B. King afterwards – great day – great city – amazing tour guide – thank Jorge. Next stop Vigo, Spain and updates to follow. Have a look at the pictures – Pena Palace is spectacular – we’ll be back Lisbon.

Boa Noite (pronounced “boh-ah noy-tey”) everyone. For your information Portugese is a Romance language that evolved from several dialects of colloquial Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. There are approximately 240 million speakers of Portuguese which makes it the seventh most spoken language in the world.