Thursday, March 14, 2024

Today was our last full day in Lisbon, and I really wanted to visit the nearby town of Sintra. Before we came to Portugal, pictures of Sintra kept popping up in my social media feed and it looked so magical perched on top of a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Sintra is about 30 minutes away from Lisbon, so today was our last chance to go. Andi booked us a walking tour of the 20th-century palace, Quinta da Regaleira, at 10:00am which meant we needed to leave our rental apartment in Lisbon by 9:00am. I got the kids up and moving for the day while Andi ran across the street to the small grocery store to buy something to eat for breakfast. He returned with an egg sandwich, a few slices of different loaf cakes, and pasteis de nata. Tory and Aden were not pleased with the idea of being out the door by 9:00am this morning.

We could’ve taken the train to Sintra, but there isn’t a station in our Campo de Ourique neighborhood so it was easier to take a ride-share service. Andi called a car using the Bolt app, but traffic delayed our driver’s arrival by 15 minutes. Our walking tour wasn’t a private tour, and it started at 10:00am, so we knew the group wouldn’t wait for us if we were late. Andi was worried about our tardiness, but thankfully we made it to Sintra right at 10:00am.

As we hopped out of the Bolt ride, the button holding Andi’s pants together broke! “Heather! Quick! Find out if that group leaving is our tour guide!” I ran after a tour guide and a group of tourists following him up a steep hill to the entrance of Quinta de Regaleira. When I finally caught up with the guy, I discovered that wasn’t our tour group. Andi was shouting and waving his arms in my direction at the bottom of the hill, “Heather, come back! This is our tour!” Geesh. What a start to the day.

Andi cinched his pants together with a carabiner for the meantime, and we began our tour of Quinta de Regaleria. Our tour guide was very friendly and full of energy. Also on our tour were two other couples from the USA. This was a busy place with lots of tourists. Luckily, we were able to bypass waiting in line because our tour guide has already purchased our entrance tickets.

Quintra de Regaleira is an interesting palace to tour because it’s a relatively new property constructed by Portuguese millionaire António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro in 1912. António built his palace in Sintra as a summer retreat / hunting lodge for his family. He was a smart, successful businessman who made his fortune in Brazil, and was also a Freemason.

It was difficult to comprehend that this entire property was man-made, designed by Carvalho Monteiro himself with the help of architect Luigi Manini. Every stone forming the grotto, wells, caves, and fountains were imported here from Portugal’s Algarve or other parts of the world as Carvalho Monteiro’s business and wealth was in masonry.

Quinta de Regaleira is one of those places where visiting with a tour guide is an absolute must. There were so many layers of hidden symbolism and stories connecting to Carvalho Monteiro’s association with Freemasonry and the Knights Templar — the initiation well and inverted tower as an example, sinking 9 levels and 27 meters below ground (the number 3 deemed the perfect number by the Freemasons; 9 and 27 being multiples of 3).

Every stone, statue, and underground passageway was designed with purpose to ultimately signify a person’s cleansing, rebirth, and righteous living with Christ, or journey to purgatory.

We toured through the palace which was also full of symbolism, and notably absent of furniture. Our tour guide explained toward the end of our tour that Carvalho Monteiro and his wife only lived a few short years after the completion of the property. Their two children inherited the fortune, and the property was eventually sold at an auction to pay off the son’s gambling debts. It changed hands several times, finally being purchased by the Sintra Town Council in 1997 which opened it to the public.

Visiting Quinta de Regaleira was so interesting, and also a bit strange! I have a feeling its caves and grottos hold many secrets of Carvalho Monteiro which he likely took with him to his grave.

After the tour, we thanked our tour guide and made our way into the city centre of Sintra. Situated in the hills of Serra de Sintra, the steep streets of the city gave us a workout as we explored the maze of cobblestone narrow alleyways. There were interesting views in every direction. The city itself is in its own microclimate which gives the area a tropical feel, and is the reason Sintra was a summer holiday destination for Portuguese nobility.

By 1:30pm, the four of us were ready for lunch. Andi and I picked a restaurant at random, and Tory requested we sit inside the restaurant. At 60°F, Sintra’s temperature wasn’t exactly cold today, but there was a damp chill in the air from the humidity. I’d read that it can be hard to find a spot for lunch during Sintra’s busy summer season, but the restaurant we picked today was practically empty.

Tory wanted to share a caesar salad with me, so we each ordered a bowl of vegetable soup to accompany our salad entree. Andi ordered the pork tenderloin entree (which he said wasn’t very good), and Aden ordered grilled shrimp.

The best part of the meal was when the waitress brought Aden the juice he ordered. It was served in a gigantic glass! Andi is always razzing Aden about not finishing his drinks in restaurants, and he happened to be in the bathroom when the tall glass of juice was brought to the table. When Andi returned, Aden said, “You can’t get mad at me for not finishing this, Dad!”

I looked back at the menu to see how many ounces of juice Aden ordered, and it clearly said 60 cl. Of course, we had no idea what the conversion from metric “cl” to customary “oz” was. In reality, it was only 20oz. of juice, but it looked like much more than that served in the tall serving glass.

Another funny moment during lunch was when Andi noticed pictures of men wearing braids in their hair on top of the half wall. “Is there a hair braiding studio in the back of the restaurant?” Andi asked. There wasn’t, it was just a music video on the TV. What makes that funny is that we see so many random things when we’re traveling that it wouldn’t even surprise us if there had been a men’s barbershop in the back of the restaurant.

After lunch, we walked to Sintra’s main square. Andi made a quick work call while the kids chased each other around and I decided what we wanted to do next. There is Sintra’s famous Pena Palace, of course, though it’s perched at the top of the hill overlooking the city, and would require us to take a cab ride up to it (or go for a very strenuous walk). Pena Palace is the most popular thing to do in Sintra which means it’s very crowded, even in the off-season. Tickets are required to enter the palace, and it’s a timed-entry ticket which means we’d likely have to wait for a while because we didn’t buy tickets in advance. To be honest, Andi and I weren’t in the mood to shuffle through hallways of tourists like herded cattle, so we made the decision to skip Pena Palace. It may be the most popular thing to see in Sintra, but we’re honestly a little “palaced-out” by this point in our trip.

Instead, we decided to walk through Sintra streets to the train station, and take the train back to Lisbon for an activity. The four of us huffed and puffed as we walked the steep maze of streets to reach the station. Trains depart Sintra for Lisbon every 15 minutes, but the train going to the station closest to our neighborhood wasn’t leaving for another 40 minutes. “This is ridiculous,” Andi said. “Why would we wait here for 40 minutes to take the train when we could just call for a ride on the Bolt app, and be back to our apartment in a half hour?” So, that’s what we ultimately decided to do, making our way back to Lisbon by car.

The climate in Sintra was cloudy, misty, and humid but in Lisbon the sun was shining brightly. Our Campo de Ourique neighborhood was electric with activity — locals enjoying the sunny, warm afternoon. Andi wanted to find a tailor to get the button on his pants fixed, so he and Tory set off to find one while Aden and I stayed back at the apartment. I did another load of laundry while he played video games on his Nintendo Switch.

It’s amazing what services are at your fingertips in a big city! Andi and Tory found a tailor’s shop a few blocks away from our apartment. Thirty minutes and €2 later, Andi’s pants were good as new.

Andi didn’t have small bills or change with him, so he borrowed €2 from Tory to pay for his pants. Tory is always loaning Andi coins for tips and taxi rides which is so funny. In exchange for paying for the pants, Andi treated Tory to cookies at Funky Chunky.

We didn’t feel like going out for dinner tonight, so Andi and I warmed up leftover chicken in the oven and paired it with a salad. Tory and Aden whined about eating leftovers, so Andi agreed to walk to get them something to eat if they could agree on a place. They picked Pizza Hut which had a store just down the street from our apartment. The kids each got personal-sized pizzas, potato wedges, and breadsticks. They were thrilled!

We have a half-day in Lisbon tomorrow, concluding with a flight to Naples, Italy tomorrow night. Why Italy? Andi and I decided to change our original plan of visiting northern Portugal in exchange for spending two weeks in Italy. To be honest, the weather has been cooler and more gloomy in Portugal this time of year than we expected with no change to the forecast in sight. I’m a little bummed that we didn’t make it to Porto, but I’m also OK changing plans in hopes of finding more sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Our time in Portugal is coming to an end which makes me a little sad! But, I’m also excited to visit Italy and see something new. I’m also filled with gratefulness. If you’d have asked Andi and I, even a week or two ago, if we thought we’d be continuing on our travels after Lisbon I would have said no. Andi was so sick the past month. We often asked ourselves, “What are we even doing here?” and made a plan that if he wasn’t feeling better by Lisbon, we were going to return home to Wisconsin.

Neither Andi or I wanted to give up on this trip though, or throw in the towel on our dream to travel as a family. We are acutely aware that we don’t have many winter seasons left of Tory and Aden at home with us, or with the flexibility to travel together as a family. Andi and I both know that if we bailed on our trip now, we’d have a bad taste in our mouths about Europe, and really that’s not fair to this part of the world. Europe is great; it’s just that we haven’t been in the best health or mindset to experience it.

Anyway, all that to say, we’re thankful Andi is feeling better and that our adventure is continuing. Tomorrow — Italy!