Sintra, Portugal, Day 2

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Trudy

Sunday, October 25

Our second day in Sintra starts out rainy but it is supposed to clear up by early afternoon. We catch the bus near the palace we visited yesterday and head up the steepest, narrowest road we have probably ever been on. The bus had to stop and back up three times to navigate the hairpin turns. We were standing in the front of the bus so had a view of the road ahead, which, by the way, soon lost the center line and became a one way road as it was too narrow for traffic in both directions.

A pretty little fountain on the walk through the park on the way to the Palace of Pena It was very misty so we couldn’t see very far but it was pretty.Soon we get our first glimpse of the Palace of Pena. This palace was one of the last residences of the Portuguese Royal Family. It is a fairy tale castle with Moorish and Manueline influences and is one of the finest example of Romantic Era architecture in Portugal. This link has more information about the palace and the park that surrounds it if you are interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_National_Palace#

We enter through this grand gate.

The next gateway is just as spectacular. Love it!The Cloister is part of the original 16th century Monastery that was built into the present Palace. It is decorated with Hispanic-Arabic tiles from 1520. The dining room has a sculpted ceiling and tiled walls…and here is one of the first bathrooms in the Palace.

I am in the bedroom of King Ferdinand II. and both of us in the Billiard room. The kitchen is huge and has the original pots, pans and ovens. Next we explore the outside of the Palace. The weather hasn’t improved all that much but we decide to hike up to the Cruz Alta, where there is a carved stone cross. This is the highest point in the Sintra Hills.The walk up to the cross was lovely. The park around the castle covers 85 hectares with several historic gardens and many buildings and grottos. On the way down from the cross we take this little crooked very winding path which eventually takes us to the Valley of the Lakes but not without some detours along the way.

The view from one of the paths. That village way in the distance actually had sunshine. The Valley of the Lakes has a castle tower for a duck house. We didn’t see many ducks, but we did see this beautiful black swan. The leaves are falling and they are huge!

We still want to see the Moorish Castle so we hike over there and have about an hour and a half before it closes. This castle was built between the 8th and 9th century by the Moors to defend the local territory and the Maritime access to Lisbon. There was a bit of blue sky but it quickly disappears, along with the supposedly fantastic views from the walls and towers. On a clear day it is possible to see the Atlantic Ocean, but we are barely able to see the castle!

In some places along the castle walls the walkways are not much more than 18″ wide, and there are no railings! We finally admit defeat even though we have only seen a very small part of this ancient castle. We are cold and wet and can’t see much of anything so we decide to hurry back to the bus stop and try to catch an earlier bus and train home. We get there just in time and we manage to get a seat for the ride, which takes us all the way to the train station. I am happy not to walk that long curving road from the station up to the Sintra Palace where we caught the bus this morning.The Sintra Station is the only train station we have seen that isn’t coverd in graffiti. It has been a good day, but also a long cold, wet day and I am glad to be heading home.

Sintra, Portugal

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Trudy

Saturday, October 24

Today we visit Sintra, a beautiful town in the foothills of Portugal’s Sintra Mountains, near Lisbon. It is about a half hour car and train ride for us from our Caxias apartment. The Sintra National Palace is easily identified by its large twin chimneys.It is about a half hour walk from the train station to the palace, in the drizzling rain. I stop to visit with this cute little fellow. There are numerous statues all along the curving uphill walk to the palace.

The palace is spectacular and one of its main features are the ceilings. They are all ornately decorated. This is the ceiling of the Swan Room, decorated with 27′ swans in different poses.

The Magpie Room celebrates one of my favourite birds. It dates back to the 15th Century and it has136 magpies, each holding the king’s banner in its beak and a white rose in its claws.

Bob liked the Galley Room whose domed ceiling is covered with 17th and 18th century seascapes and vessels of the naval powers of the time, the Ottomans, Dutch, and Portuguese.

The Blazons Hall ceiling has the Portuguese Royal Arms, the coats of arms of the eight children of King Manuel I and the coats of arms of the 72 most influential families of the kingdom. The walls are covered with beautiful blue and white tiled scenes. It is a stunning room.

We spent about two hours in the palace and then found a quiet little reading room where we had a rest and ate our lunch. It was raining so we weren’t in a rush to get back outside, but eventually we explore some of the streets and shops before our walk to the train.

Some of the shops are very small, like this one, which was only about four feet wide… and the streets are very narrow.

Back at the train station parking lot I notice this wall of street art/graffiti. It is much nicer than most of the graffiti we have seen and we have seen a lot of it. Unfortunately most of it is pretty ugly and it is often defacing private property.These morning glory vines are growing on a wall near our Caxias apartment. The ones we plant at home never grow anywhere near as wonderfully as these.

Palacio Real and Templo De Debod

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Trudy

Wednesday, October 14

The Palacio Real is the official residence of Spanish Royalty and the building we tried to visit Monday that was closed for a State Function.Bob read somewhere that there are over 2000 rooms in the Palace but we are quite content to visit the twenty or so that were open to the public. This is half of the grand staircase at the entrance, there is also a set of stairs on either side of this one that continues to the second level. The red crest at the top of the stairs is the personal crest of King Felipe IV, who we almost saw on Monday!This is the view up above the staircase. It was very ornate but only a taste of what we saw inside the Palace rooms.i did take one picture of the Royal Chamber of Carlos (Charles) III also known as the Gasparini Room. We spent about an hour and a half touring these lavish rooms, each more ornate and incredible than the last. We even visit the Throne room and the Crown Room where the Royal Crown and Sceptre are kept along with other State treasures. There are the ordinary sort of Museum ‘guards’ but there doesn’t appear to be a lot of security inside the Palace. Mind you, there are lots of police everywhere outside the palace.Do I look royal walking down the Palace stairs? Just picture me in a beautiful ball gown, all decked out in jewels!We visit the Armoury through these old doors. Turns out it is one of the most important collections of parade and tournament armour in the world! Everything is beautifully displayed on two floors and there is even armour for children and ponies. No photos allowed, but here is a photo of a photo from a little calendar we bought.

After a tea break in the Palace Cafeteria I do go back and sketch this interesting old helmet from the 1400’s. It was one of the first exhibits we saw when we entered the armoury, and of course I love dragons. It was also small enough to sketch in a short time.

We walk through the Palace Gardens on our way to the Parque del Oeste which is on a hill high above the Palace.

There we visit the Egyptian Temple de Debod. The neat thing about seeing this temple is that we actually visited its original location, where the Aswan Dam flooded many temples, several years ago. Now here we are in Madrid, seeing this temple that was saved and given to the Spanish people in thanks for their help in saving the temples at Abu Simbel.

Two of the original entrance arches to the temple.A view of the back of this 2000 year old temple and some of Madrid’s newer buildings. I thought this dome was different all in coloured tiles. A view of the Palace. We can see for miles from the top of the park behind the Temple of Debod.On the way home we stop for tapas at the Mercado de San Miguel that we visited the other day. This is basically a glorified food court in a neat old iron and glass building. We find some tapas for Bob, and one for me. Bob has two delicious pastries and I have to be content with taking pictures of desserts. It is hard to find any for me when I don’t eat gluten, eggs or dairy. I do get a fruit cup…This picture is for L & M, yummy little hedgehogs and Marzipan fruit and veggies with faces.

Spanish National Holiday, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Guernica

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Trudy

Monday, October 12, Day 30 of our holiday!

Today is Dia de la Hispanidad, Spain’s National Holiday to celebrate Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492. There is a Military Parade this morning but it is a bit too early for us, so instead we go to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which is supposed to be free today. However, when we arrive it is all cordoned off and there are lots of police and crowds of people everywhere.We decide that we should wait around and see what is going to happen. Turns out that King Felipe IV is to arrive at the palace, and after about an hour Bob thinks we should move closer to an entrance that is guarded by mounted soldiers. Good thing we did because a couple minutes later a cavalcade of cars, and lots of police arrive and so does the King. Only problem is we are still quite far away and the cars drive up and turn into the palace very quickly. We both try to take a picture and I mange to get this one which shows the King’s car but not much else. Oh well…. We do get to see the mounted troops return from the parade and they are magnificent.We find a spot to eat in the park across from the palace, accompanied by a guitar player singing in English. It was quite nice hearing something we could actually understand. I’ve only managed to learn a few Spanish words: I keep thinking of French words instead of the Spanish ones I have been trying to learn. They just don’t seem to stick in my mind.We decide to walk to the Reina Sophia museum, only we get lost, repeatedly! Bob is using a new map app on the phone and either the app or Bob is not working well because we find ourselves walking in the wrong direction more than once. We do walk past some interesting buildings…

and a newly planted bed of veggies around a statue that was very pretty.

And then there are the interesting street performers trying to make a bit of money. If people walked too close to this one, a head jumped out and scared them.

We end up right back where we started after walking in a big circle so we head for a Metro station near Plaza Mayor, and encounter hordes of people.The subway takes us very close to the Museum, but do you think we can find it? After some more walking in circles, as it seems to be that sort of a day, we finally spot the museum entrance tucked between two buildings. We are here to see PIcasso’s famous painting ‘Guernica’. I sneak this photo from afar and through a doorway, just to say I was here.

The painting is very powerful. It doesn’t reproduce well at post card or even book page size as the brushstrokes, textures, lines and subtleties of the paint and drawing just don’t show up. I was surprised by how much I liked this painting as it never appealed to me before. Here we are posing beside a couple sculptures we liked. A Picasso for me…and a Jacques Lipchitz for Bob. He liked this one even before he knew it was a sailor with a guitar I just loved this little head, ‘Portrait of my son Jordi’ by an artist named Joan Rebull.The hallways made an optical illusion in this photograph. Depending on how you look at it it is an arched ceiling or a big white cone. Can you see it?