Today we finally made it to Sintra, which is one of the main reasons (if not the main one) I wanted to come to Portugal. It is a magical place, and pictures don't do it justice, but I took a bunch of pictures anyway. Even if they don't capture the full beauty of the place, they will at least remind me that it is true I got to visit it one day.
Lionel had been reading about how to get there, and was nervous about taking the car because of the narrow streets and the lack of parking. But the owner of the rental apartment indicated it was Ok to take the car, and that the local train (which was the alternative) was not necessarily a nice one. So we ended up taking the car, and I am glad we did. We were able to park without issues, and the walk to the place wasn't as bad as I would have anticipated. We also got lucky because the weather was milder than the previous days, which made the walk even easier to handle.
Sintra in itself is actually pretty big, and there is no way we would be able to see it all in one day - not with the girls. So we decided to just go to Quinta Da Regaleira, which houses the Inverted Tower I have been wanting to see. The whole property is beautiful, with huge gardens and towers from several centuries ago, and a mansion and chapel built in the early 1900s.
When we got to the property I was anxious to see the inverted tower, but it wasn't obvious where it would be. So we just walked around and ended up discovering it in the most unexpected way. We took pictures in front of a fountain, situated at the bottom of one of the towers, and realized that you could actually walked inside of it. So we did. The fountain led to a hallway of sorts inside a cave which, as it turned out, took you straight to the middle of the inverted tower! I was so excited to finally be there. I walked up and down, and tried to take the one picture that would actually capture how amazing it is.
We couldn't stay all day in the inverted tower, or "Pozo Iniciatico" as it is officially called, so we eventually moved on. We walked through a couple of other caves, ended up by the waterfall, and checked out the mansion before walking back to the car. Taking our learnings from the previous day, we decided not to push it and just head back.
Lionel had been reading about how to get there, and was nervous about taking the car because of the narrow streets and the lack of parking. But the owner of the rental apartment indicated it was Ok to take the car, and that the local train (which was the alternative) was not necessarily a nice one. So we ended up taking the car, and I am glad we did. We were able to park without issues, and the walk to the place wasn't as bad as I would have anticipated. We also got lucky because the weather was milder than the previous days, which made the walk even easier to handle.
Sintra in itself is actually pretty big, and there is no way we would be able to see it all in one day - not with the girls. So we decided to just go to Quinta Da Regaleira, which houses the Inverted Tower I have been wanting to see. The whole property is beautiful, with huge gardens and towers from several centuries ago, and a mansion and chapel built in the early 1900s.
When we got to the property I was anxious to see the inverted tower, but it wasn't obvious where it would be. So we just walked around and ended up discovering it in the most unexpected way. We took pictures in front of a fountain, situated at the bottom of one of the towers, and realized that you could actually walked inside of it. So we did. The fountain led to a hallway of sorts inside a cave which, as it turned out, took you straight to the middle of the inverted tower! I was so excited to finally be there. I walked up and down, and tried to take the one picture that would actually capture how amazing it is.
We couldn't stay all day in the inverted tower, or "Pozo Iniciatico" as it is officially called, so we eventually moved on. We walked through a couple of other caves, ended up by the waterfall, and checked out the mansion before walking back to the car. Taking our learnings from the previous day, we decided not to push it and just head back.
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