by Jim Bellomo | Oct 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Yesterday (our last day in Portugal), we (everyone except Kathleen, who was still battling her cold) woke up early and were met by our guide, Alex, from Top Ten Tours.
We tried to tour with Alex when we were here in December, according to Mike’s recommendation, but he was booked. Since Mike was with us this time, he set it up, and we were so glad we got to tour with Alex on this return trip. He met us right on time and drove us to the Pena Palace in Sintra. He had everything prearranged, and we were in the first group through the palace. His knowledge of his subject was outstanding, and his delivery was fun but informative.
Sintra was the summer home (even though it is less than an hour from Lisbon) of the Portuguese Royal Family (when they had one), and it is at a higher and more humid elevation, so it was cooler in the summer. The palace is incredibly colorful. I will say that the further away you are, the more beautiful it looks. That’s because it really needs a paint job. Two hundred-year-old buildings have gutters that really leach out onto the paint. You will have to see my photos to see what I mean. No matter if they are dirty, the Palace is magnificent, and I hope you like the images. BTW: I was amazed when I started processing them because of the blue sky and the incredible light; these are right out of the camera. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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Heading into the Pena Palace..
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The colors just do it.
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Triton is holding everything up.
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See what I mean about the sky.
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Looking back towards Lisbon.
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And back at parts of the Palace.
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With Lisbon in the distance.
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It truly is a cool place.
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Lots of yellow and red and some blue.
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As well as typical Portuguese tiles.
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Looking out to sea.
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And back in the Palace.
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The roof to the chapel.
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A small sundial.
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The clock tower.
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It is truly an original place.
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Back to Trident.
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This is a close up of what he had around him.
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And a close up of some of the tiles.
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The tower.
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The courtyard of the Palace.
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You know how I love gargoyles. This guy seemed nice.
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The red tower again.
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Looking through a window at the castle below.
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Another view to Lisbon and the Taugus River.
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And back at the Pena.
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Can’t get enough of this clock tower.
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Inside, I liked this wood carved statue.
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And this wood carving of a great battle.
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This is a close up of the wood carvings.
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More towers.
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More gargoyles. This one is a gutter spout.
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Catholics of the time believe only God could make something perfect so there is one tile here that isn’t.
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Can you find it?
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This is in the village of Sintra, below the Pena Palace.
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A very cute little village that has gone touristy.
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We were here in December and almost by ourselves.
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I shot this builiding in December but the light was better yesterday.
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Looking UP at the castle in silhouette.
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And another view of the village.
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And my attempt to capture the village building and the castle above it.
We spent almost two and a half hours at the palace, and then he dropped us in the village for some shopping and photo time before picking us up again to take us to lunch in Cascais at a local restaurant that served basically the best chicken I have ever eaten and french fries. What more could you want? We were obviously the only non-locals there, and Alex made us promise not to name the place. He said if you’re going to find it, you will have to tour with him. Suffice it to say that we would all do this tour again just for that lunch. Here are a few photos I took in Cascais.
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The wavy tiles in front of the municipal building.
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An enormous tile painting.
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This inlet is part of the Atlantic and there is a bridge across it.
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Who knew there was a bridge across the Atlantic? This is what was on the other side.
After lunch, we were off to The End of the World (where Europeans originally thought the world ended or you fell off the edge), a beautiful place. See the pics. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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The End of the World.
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The lighthouse at the End of the World.
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The rocks below the lighthouse at the End of the World.
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The abbey above the rocks, that are above the lighthouse that is at the End of the World.
That about sums up our tour with Alex. He was an excellent guide, and he knows where to find the best chicken I had ever eaten and could never replicate.
Back at the hotel, Kathleen was awake and feeling better, so we all went out for one last farewell meal together at the rooftop bar of the hotel next door to ours. The two hotels are under the same ownership, so we got a discount for dinner, but it still wasn’t worth it. I forgot the old adage that if you get a view, the service and food probably aren’t that great…that was the case here. But I did get a few great photos of Lisbon at night to close out the trip.
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The castle was all lit up.
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Along with the city below it.
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But it is clearly the star.
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And so is the year-round Christmas Market in the square about a block from our hotel.
And that concludes our 21-day journey all over the Iberian Peninsula. We had an awesome time, and I will be back tomorrow with a breakdown of our flight home, our night in London and all the fun stuff that happened in between. Then, I promise by the weekend, you will get a full report on the cruise and the trip, highlighting the best parts.
An Editor’s Note: If you like reading about traditional ocean cruising, please check out my British buddy Wansbrough’s cruise blog, which you can find by clicking here. He and his lovely bride (who is a vegan, so you get a new perspective on cruise food) are currently doing a circumnavigation of Australia, and I am loving reading about it. He blogs every day, and you will like it if you are into traditional ocean cruising.
There’s a great tradition in storytelling that’s thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that’s really what I wanted to do. —Aaron Sorkin
by Jim Bellomo | Dec 5, 2023 | Photography
Monday was our last full day in Portugal. I am writing this at 4:08 am on Wednesday, December 6 while sitting in the conference center of the Marriott Hotel in Prague. Yesterday was fly day (we flew TAPAir from Lisboa to Prague) and we are now in the snowy north. This means no report for yesterday unless you want to know about a fairly boring three hour flight.
I regret this is the only picture I took of Miguel. He is an outstanding guide and we highly recommend him.
But back to Monday when we got up early (we were meeting our guide for the day at 8:30 so no pre-dawn walk for me) had our breakfast and were driving away (another Miguel) by 8:20. We had found Miguel through what is becoming our go-to source for tour guides—Tours by Locals. He was wonderful. We jumped in his spacious Ford, and we headed for Sintra, the summer home of Portugal’s kings and queens. Sintra is located just north of Lisboa, about 40 minutes by car, in what passes for mountains in Portugal. But it was here that the kings built their summer palaces and that we would tour that day.
The drive out is a great time for us to get to know Miguel and for him to tell us about himself and Portuguese life in general. We love hearing about what is going on in a country now, as well as picking up the historical highlights. Unlike many of our previous guides in other countries, our Portuguese guides have been very open to discussing their political systems, their current problems with their government and many other topics that most guides won’t touch. We found it very open and refreshing.
Since it was rush hour in Lisboa, Miguel had all kinds of back roads he used to get us to Sintra. He is a Sintra native and has lived there all his life, so he knows all the shortcuts. He had us there and parked in no time. Once there, we got out and walked up a short hill, and he took us to a street that looked to be something only mountain goats would climb. Kathleen looked at it like Mt. Everest, but he said, “No, I just want to take you to the first shop up the hill for a little surprise.” Sure enough, we walked into a bakery that has been open under the same familial ownership since 1862. WHOA! That bakery opened in the middle of our civil war! Amazing. He insisted we try the specialty of the house—”the pillow.” So we couldn’t disappoint him (even though we had just had breakfast about two hours before) and he got us one each with a cappuccino. He described the “pillow” as a sweet roll full of the same egg cream filling as the Pastéis de Belém we had the day before but in the same form as a maple bar back home. And of course, covered in sugar. They were delicious but I could feel my teeth decaying as I took each bite.
After our brief stop at the bakery, we were off to walk around the village of Sintra and then tour the oldest palace in Portugal. This is true because the summer palaces had not been destroyed in the great earthquake/fire/tsunami of 1755. That had destroyed the palaces in Lisboa, and the royalty moved to their summer palaces in Sintra while things were being rebuilt in the city.
I have a lot of photos from this entire day, so I am going to break them up. This first group is from the village of Sintra and the palace itself. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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When we first got out of the car, we were parked next to this Moorish fountain that still works more than 300 years later.
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The inlaid tiles are beautiful. Had to do a close up.
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The magical village of Sintra.
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Off in the distance, their city hall…
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…that looks like a fairy tale castle.
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The hill on the way to the bakery (which is actually the first shop on the left).
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Inside a bakery opened in 1862!!!
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The village center in Sintra.
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The oldest palace in Portugal.
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From the steps of the palace you could see this Moorish castle above.
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Inside the castle we found it incredibly well preserved and restored.
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This is a close up of the ceiling in the previous photo.
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I loved this door.
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A Moorish decoration above a door.
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The two spires are chimneys for the palace kitchen.
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I shot some shots as we walked through to give you a since of the palace.
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There was an entire ceiling of magpies in one room.
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This incredible bed in another.
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And tile everywhere. Truly Portugal is a country of amazing tile work..
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I just liked these two. Kind of a surf and turf.
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One ceiling was all mermaids.
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But most rooms had at least half a wall of tile.
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This fountain outside in a garden area still works.
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Just like we do at home, they had a collection of plates. Ours are more colorful ?.
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The doorways were decorated like this throughout the palace.
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We finally enter what was the throne room and there are literally floor to ceiling tile works.
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The ceiling as magnificent.
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Miguel explained that the top of the dome represented the king. He was surrounded by his children.
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A close up of one of the kids.
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Below them were the coat of arms of the different cities in Portugal.
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Below that were the different noble families of Portugal.
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In a bedroom was this end post on a bed frame. The wood is not painted but is a black wood from Africa. The Portuguese were explorers and traders who found treasures from around the world.
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They also did not destroy their past. This Christian crucifix was installed over a Muslim/Moorish scene from years earlier.
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The tile patterns were truly unique. This is Escher years before Escher.
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In the kitchen, this is the inside of the two spired chimneys.
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A smoker
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The stoves
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More stoves and an oven. All wood burning and the smoke from the fires just went up the funnel spires.
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Another elaborate doorway.
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Not sure what this sculpture was about.
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This was an outdoor shower in the garden. On hot days you could walk into it.
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Then water would spray out of the walls…
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…through the tiny holes you can see if you look close.
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Another view of city hall from the palace.
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Of course the palace has its own Christmas Market.
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What you see that is blue here is all tile.
I need to mention here that my amazing bride climbed so many stairs to get through that palace. It seemed like they never ended, and like steps built more than 200 years ago, they were all of differing heights and widths. She did it all. I tell you this because when we were through touring this palace, our choice was to go to another palace (The Pena Palace) where there would be even more walking and climbing or heading back to Lisboa via the coast. Miguel did promise me a chance to take photos of the Pena Palace (which he assured me was much more impressive outside than inside) before we headed out of Sintra. For the sake of Kathleen’s knees (that she strained two days before getting into and out of the TukTuk), we chose the coast. But here’s the Pena Palace from the outside. Pretty impressive.
On to Cascais
After seeing the outside of Pena Palace, we headed on some beautiful backroads (where we were pretty much the only car going in any direction) to the coast. As soon as we arrived, we were blown away by the ocean. Yes, I have seen an ocean before, but where the Atlantic meets the European continent with amazing green water waves coming to the shore in one successive wave after another was somehow just mesmerizing. Check out my photos. And do yourself a favor; see them as big as you can. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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Amazing wave sets, coming one after the other.
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I have to admit I took more than 100 shots of these waves.
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The water was so beautiful.
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The ruins of an old fort on the shore only made it more photogenic.
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This point in the distance is the furthest western point in continental Europe.
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So much beautiful greenish blue water.
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Rocks below created…
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…an amazing natural water show.
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No surfers today.
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About an. hour north is Nazare. More about that in the text.
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Beautiful beaches.
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But empty on a Monday.
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We stopped at Boca do Inferno
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The mouth of hell—a waterspout where I took about 300 photos waiting for just the right wave.
I knew going in that Portugal had some beautiful coastline but I had no idea it would be this amazing. A little further north is the city of Nazare, where the monster waves (they say they are the largest in the world) are. Check out this video to see what I mean. It is truly both scary and amazing.
After I had worn out my camera battery and filled my camera’s memory card, we hopped back into the car to head for the city of Cascais, which we thought looked a lot like the city of La Jolla in Southern California, just more charming. Here are the shots I took there.
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The harbor of Cascais. I love colorful boats.
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And colorful flowers. They go all out with the poinsettias for Christmas.
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Miguel pointed out the beautiful tile on the city hall but it was mostly covered with Christmas decorations.
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But the pavement in the square was a tile pattern made to look like waves.
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Which floated right up to this civic building.
Back to Belem
After we had lunch and walked around in Cascais, it was time to head back to Lisboa and our hotel. Our tour had taken most of the day, and we were ready to take a nap. But I still had one set of photos I wanted to take. Granted, it was not the time of day I preferred to take them, but I wanted to try it. And those were in Belem, where we had gone the day before on the HoHo bus. But it was so cold and the sky so flat when we were there I didn’t have the motivation to walk to get the shots. Today, though, was beautiful, so my plan was to get Kathleen back to the hotel to take a nap and then for me to get on the HoHo bus (our passes were still good) and go all the way back to Belem. This would have taken me more than an hour to get out there from the hotel. When I was telling Miguel what I had planned, he said he could easily drop me in Belem, and then I could take the shots I wanted and take the bus back to the city center. This was a marvelous solution, and he was so great to make the offer.
So he dropped me in Belem and took Kathleen back to the hotel so I could shoot photos of two of Lisboa’s most iconic monuments—Padrão dos Descobrimentos and the Belem Tower. The first of these is a monument and tribute to Portuguese explorers over the years. There are a lot of them, and they truly opened up the world. The monument is amazing. It stands almost at the mouth of the Tagus River, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. You will have to see the photos. I did close-ups and overviews. It is a joy to shoot. Then, I moved on to Belem Tower, a monument to Portuguese culture that sits on the river even closer to the Atlantic. Again, you will have to see the photo (that’s all it takes is one) to appreciate why I wanted to go back and shoot it in good weather. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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Padrão dos Descobrimentos
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With people for scale.
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And now a few closeups from both sides (which are different).
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This sculpture is amazing.
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And finally, the Belem Tower. Just beautiful and worth the trip.
That about does if for Lisboa and Portugal. We had a really incredible visit and can’t wait to go back…in October. This is definitely one of my favorite cities we have been to. Every part of this stop on our journey worked great. The hotel was wonderful, the people we met were awesome, food was delicious—as always, we ate too much of it. If you get the chance—visit this place. You won’t be sorry.
I like to dream about Portugal, and it’s less easy when you are there. —Maria de Medeiros