Day 3 Sintra

After 10 hours of sleep we hit the streets. After pastry and coffee in an outdoor café, we went to the train station. We experienced Portugal inefficiency in taking 30 minutes to buy train tickets thereby missing the next train. Luckily, there is a train every 20-30 minutes because Sintra is one of Portugal’s biggest tourist attractions. It’s a UNESCO heritage site and a place where Portuguese kings had their summer palaces. The train ride was 40 minutes and we got a view of the ugly Lisbon suburbs. Sintra is a pretty, picturesque town with hills all around sprinkled with castles, palaces, monasteries, gardens, etc. We visited the ruins of a 12th century Moorish castle and a 19th century royal palace. When we got to the castle, Bo could not find her camera. It was a downer. The highlight of the day was when we returned to the tourist office, they had Bo’s camera. The town has many outdoor cafes and we selected one for our 4 pm lunch. Then for dessert we had a shot of cherry liqueur served in a small chocolate cup. We took the train back to Lisbon and arrived at 7pm. We went to Bairro Alto (shortening the walk up by taking the long escalators in the train station). After walking a lot we selected a wine/tapas bar. Bo had heard the woman sitting across the aisle on the flight telling her companion to have the traditional Portuguese sausage (chorizo asado). They set it on fire at our table and let it cook there. Several other people had it too because we saw flames at a few other tables. When we got back to the hotel, we saw on TV that there were riots in Lisbon while we were gone.