Lisbon Area

We spent a few days visiting Lisbon and some of its surrounding areas. It had been about 25 years since I was last in Lisbon so I was looking forward to revisiting it.

Sintra

We stayed in the town of Sintra which was where the rich and royal families traditionally stayed. Our Airbnb was located just out of town and had a beautiful courtyard with 2 orange trees in it.

The main focal point of Sintra are the two mountains that dominate the town and atop each one is a castle. One is Pena Palace and the other is an older Moorish castle. We took an Uber up to the entrance to Pena Palace. From the entrance, you need to walk 1/2 an hour up the mountain to get to the palace and then to explore the gardens you need to walk down and up and down and up the mountain.

After visiting Pena palace, we walked to the other mountain top and along the ruins of the Moorish castle, and then down, down, down the mountain for an hour into the old town and back to our car.

Cascais

We took a drive to the coastal town of Cascais and visited the blow hole, the coastal walk and the town. It was a very cute touristy town and we particularly enjoyed the street tiles which created a cool effect.

Lisbon

We spent a full day exploring Lisbon. We first started at the National Tile Museum which was incredible and I would definitely recommend it to anyone going to Lisbon. The museum is located in an old church and cloisters, and the inside of the church is completely tiled! The museum explains the history of tile making in Spain and Portugal and has some very interesting examples of tiles.

After the tile museum, we went up to the castle on the hill overlooking Lisbon.

We then explored the downtown area for a few hours:

We then went over to the Belem Tower as the sun was setting:

After Lisbon, we started heading south towards the Algarve.