Day trip to Sintra (by train)

November 25, 2024

Since we had packed up our bicycles yesterday, we had a completely free day today to do whatever we wanted and we decided to make a day trip to Sintra.

Sintra is highly recommended in Rick Steves' Portugal guidebook and, I expect, in every other similar book. I was torn, though, having seen this article last summer. It was one of the main reasons we opted to go to Belém instead when we had a free day earlier in the trip. Also, today is Monday, the day (apparently) when most attractions in Lisbon are closed, including the Monastery of Jerónimos, and we knew then that, if we had another free day, it would likely be today. It was just unfortunate that the monastery was closed the day we were there.

So, the last Monday in November. We will see how busy it is.

The train to Sintra leaves from Rossio station, just a couple of blocks from our hotel. Easy, right? But when we got to Rossio Square, the building we had thought was the station wasn't. The station where we had purchased our Navegante cards (until recently called Viva Viagem cards) was a Metro station with no connection to the train station. The building we had thought was the station was actually the Teatro Nacional (our confusion wasn't helped by the theatre undergoing major renovations behind unlabelled hoarding). Al got Google directions on his phone (I was conserving my last bit of data), we followed those, but didn't look around properly. We finally found it and raced to catch the train leaving in 4 minutes rather than wait for the next one. We had already spent almost half an hour looking for the station. Luckily our Navegante cards meant we didn't need to purchase tickets.

The train was close to full. We sat facing backwards, chatting with the American couple facing forwards across from us. They were visiting Lisbon en route to celebrating American Thanksgiving with their daughter who lived in Berlin. They offered to share their Uber to the Pena Palace but we said we were planning to walk up.

Departing the station at Sintra, we had to say no to the all of the taxi, tuk-tuk, and fake-classic-car drivers who offered their services. Our information was that it was a steep hike to the Pena Palace and took less than an hour, which we interpreted as significantly easier than the Grouse Grind we do as a workout at home. After a day mostly sitting on a train and before a very long day sitting on planes and in airports, we wanted the exercise.

The walking route started in the opposite direction of the driving route so we soon (temporarily) escaped the touts. After a short descent, we started climbing through the historic town centre, past new batches of touts wherever the walking route, which included sections with stairs, went along a street. Eventually we were walking a well-surfaced trail through Parque das Marendas.

Near the beginning of the walk from the train station in Sintra

You can't miss Vila Sassetti since it's in the beautiful park and the path passes very close to it. In fact, a little later research found this on the Parques de Sintra website:

In 1885, Victor Carlos Sassetti became the owner of some land on which he decided to build his summer house inspired on the castles of Lombardy and the fine gardens that would surround them. The work started in 1890 with the assistance of his friend, the architect and scenographer Luigi Manini... The Municipal Council of Sintra purchased the property in 2004 and, a few years later, Parques de Sintra bought Villa Sassetti and the adjoining property in 2011 within the objective of both preserving its heritage value and establishing a new footpath running from the Historical Centre to the National Palace of Pena/Moorish Castle as an alternative to the [Estrada da] Pena. ... the garden also underwent a thorough restoration process.

Eventually the trail became a bit rougher and steeper, presumably having left the Sassetti gardens. We hadn't seen anyone else walking up but now started to encounter a few people walking down. When we got to the trail intersection and turned right to go to the Pena Palace (left would be to the Moorish Castle), we encountered a guided group starting the descent. Sure enough, a parking lot wasn't far.

We bought our timed admission at a kiosk near this lower parking lot and walked up through the Vale dos Lagos and Parque Nacional da Pena. Ferdinand II, the builder of the Pena Palace (read about its history here), also built the park and "planted tree species from every continent and in the process rendering the 85 hectares of the Park of Pena as the most important arboretum existing in Portugal."

Eventually we arrived at Pena Palace. Wow! We were still early for our timed admission so browsed the gift shop while we waited for the people with noon tickets to go in, then joined the queue for the 12:30 entrance.

I'm not going to even try to caption the Pena Palace photos I'm including below. It was incredible.

The above photos were from outside the palace proper; this gate is the entrance to the courtyard where you find the shop and the end of the queue to enter the palace interior.

The photos below are from my visit to the interior of the palace. This being Portugal, there are a lot of terraces and inner courtyards.

The tiles in places seemed a bit random in design but coordinated in colour scheme

This shell mosaic lined an alcove and was different from all the other decorated surfaces, which were tiled or carved.

Ceramic figure on a desk. It's quite small, maybe 20 cm tall.

The timed-entrance queue is on the left; the terrace in the centre is just before you leave.

This glass chandelier was very low, perhaps to be cleaned. There were several rooms undergoing restoration. I suspect it's a neverending task.

The palace kitchen seemed rather stark in comparison to the royal quarters

The entrance to the chapel of the Monastery of Saint Jerome, the ruins of which were on the site purchased by Ferdinand II.

Smiling because Al finally achieved a good couple-selfie! Perhaps his half-squat did the trick because he's actually almost a foot taller than me.

We had enjoyed our walk up and there was no question we'd walk down. I was quite certain my knees would be fine.

I took this photo of a landscaper's truck in Pena Park because it is such a common type of pickup in Portugal: six-seater cab and aftermarket wood box.

The rougher part of the trail was steep enough to have steps.

I saw several of these plants in Parque das Marendas. The flower eventually emerges...

I'm curious about the palm(?) with the frothy fronds in the centre of the photo. I saw several of these in Parque das Marendas

In Parque das Marendas. These flower clusters were less than 15 mm in diameter.

We stopped for lunch in the historic town centre since there were plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from. There were also many souvenir shops, but nothing really for anyone who lived here. Then we continued on to the train station and had our choice of seats on the waiting train.

This is taken from the platform level of Rossio Station. From here, it's two levels down to the streets to the east, the direction we are facing.

For the record, this is Rossio Station as seen from the northwest corner of Rossio Square. Not an obvious train station! Unless you can read the carved words over the doors.

When we checked in to our hotel yesterday, we were given coupons for the bar/restaurant at the nearby My Story Figueira, one free drink each and 20% off a meal. We are staying at the less-expensive but still very comfortable My Story Teja, just a block away. (We hadn't received a meal discount coupon and didn't discover the drink coupon on our previous stay until we were leaving.) The restaurant looked very nice so we took advantage of the offer and enjoyed very nice Italian pasta dishes and a glass each of wine.

After a quick (dry) stroll, we headed to bed for our early wake-up tomorrow.

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