Hi everyone, Today was an adventurous day for 4/6 people. Gage spent the day being very sick with a stomach bug all day and as such, our initial plans of everyone taking the 9:10 train to Sintra, Portugal this morning were thrown out the window. Sintra is a smaller town around 14 miles northwest of Lisbon and is home to several palaces and a castle in its mountains. Gage was not in good enough shape to tag along for this day trip so he stayed back with Jen and the rest of us took the train to Sintra.
Sintra was absolutely gorgeous, with several very pretty buildings and a castle visible atop a mountain right outside the train station. We started with a walk around the area and were told by a tour guide that there was no way we could see everything in just one day unless he drove us around and showed us all the palaces and castles. When we told him we weren’t interested and only wanted a taxi to the top of the mountain close to the National Palace of Pena so we could walk back down and explore along the way, he left and said, “You Lose!”. But little did he know that we plan to go back on Wednesday so we could do everything that Sintra has to offer, so little did he know that we are the ones getting the last laugh. Ha!
Moors Castle
After getting a taxi to the top of the mountain we were dropped off outside the entrance to the Parque E Palacio Nacional Da Pena. It is a large 88-hectare area of land that holds within it a castle and multiple palaces. Our first stop was to do a tour of the Pena Palace itself. It is on the highest point in its surroundings and was the palace for several Portuguese kings in the past such as King Ferdinand II, who proposed and funded many of the renovations to the nearby castle, Castle of the Moors.
After our tour inside the palace itself and about an hour of exploring the grounds of the palace, we decided to walk around the surrounding palace gardens which were absolutely gorgeous and took up most of the 88-hectare area. They are filled with many ponds, man-made waterfalls, and LOTS of random paths that lead to different and seemingly random points on other paths throughout the park. We also during this time walked closer too and checked out the Moors Castle (also within the park). It was very cool but collectively decided that it was cooler to see the outside and not have to pay the 10 euros each to walk around the inside of.
We walked around the gardens and did so until around 3:30 before we all started to get a bit tired. We started our roughly 2.5-mile trek back to the train station we arrived at earlier that morning. We made it to the station at 4:30 just in time to catch the 4:40 train back to our Airbnb.
Since then we have got back home, Connor, Kayla, Griffin, and Jen all ate dinner. Jen and Kayla went out for a walk. Connor and Griffin got some much-needed rest. Gage, still not feeling well was asleep/resting. And as I’m finishing writing this, Matt just started puking too.
Its been a wonderful day! 😊 Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a wellness check!
- Connor
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