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NOVEMBER 13, 2003
As we walked out to the train lobby there was a young man trying to get people to go to the hostel he worked for. We decided to go. He had picked up six people. One great thing was that he would drive us. Saved us time looking for a place and getting there. The hostel was listed in our
The hostel was OK. The woman wasn't too friendly. We wanted to look at the rooms first. She gave us the bigger one because the people decided to stay another night in the smaller one.
We got settled in the room and went out to find the information office. From there we decided to take the Metro to a park area that was built for the 1998 Expo. The largest oceanarium in Europe is located there which is where we decided to spend our time. It was great. We spent a few hours there. I enjoyed seeing the sealife. The most entertaining thing was a pair of sea otters. Very cute creatures and they seemed to enjoy entertaining the tourists.
We walked over to Cortes de Ingles which had 14 cinemas. We thought we would get information on the movies playing. The movies are all in English. There wasn't anything playing right away, so we walked to find a laundromat. It was way out of the way, so we decided we could wear our clothes for a few more days.
We walked back towards our hostel in search of an internet. We found one and sat there for about an hour. We then headed to find something to eat.
It was about 8:00 when we got back to the hostel. I was tired so I read and fell asleep. Before I fell asleep, Laurie and I discussed what we were going to do. We didn't know if there was much here. One of the places that the books mentioned is called Sintra. We decided we would take the train there tomorrow.
November 12, 2003
We left Lisbon about 9:30 for Sintra. It was a 45 minute ride. It was a nice little town. We walked about 20 minutes from the train to the center. We decided to take a bus to the Moorish Castle and the Pena Palace. When we got on the bus the fog and clouds started moving in.
The bus dropped us off at the castle. The area was inhabited by the Moors and this castle was built in the 8th century. It is not all intact but many walls and turrets are still there. The area was quite large and it was set high in a forested area. It was a neat walk through there. I wonder what it was like those many years ago. The forest seemed like a rain forest. If the weather co-operated we would have had terrific views from the turrets. Unfortunately we had only glimpses of some views and then fog.
We walked back out when we were done and started walking toward the Pena Palace and park. We thought the park was free but it was not. Since the weather wasn't good, we decided to head back to Lisbon and go to the movies. We got to Cortes de Ingles just in time. We saw a movie called Matchstickmen with Nicholas Cage. It was good but more of a good rental.
November 13, 2003
Laurie and I decided to try Sintra again if the weather looked good. It looked like it might be OK so we were on the train at 9:20. As soon as we got off the train, it started raining.
We went to the Sintra National Palace because then we could be inside. The palace was built in the 1st century and added on to in the 16th century when it was reigned by somebody else. It houses the most important collection of colored glazed tiles in the world. The tile was quite impressive especially to think of the people hand painting the designs.
It only took a half hour to go through and by the time we got out of there the weather looked brighter. We decided to walk to Monseratt Park and palace. We originally thought the park was free, but found out before that it wasn't. We decided to walk anyways for something to do. We just turned around when we got there and then back to the train station. We were on the train at 1:00. We took the train back to Lisbon and then hopped on the subway and then another train to go to Belem. It is a suburb just outside of Lisbon.
We walked through a nice park and viewed the Belem tower and the monument to the Discoverers from the outside.
One of the things that we read in one of our books to do was to go into a famous pastry shop called the Casa Pasties de Belem and order a Pastel del Nata, which is what we did. It is a flakey pastry shell filled with a thick creamy filling. It was warm out of the oven and we sprinkled powdered sugar and cinnamon on top. It was good and we thought of ordering another but we restrained ourselves.
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