Dale & Nicky OE: Portugal- Lisbon, Sintra and Obidos

For Lisbon we headed to a campsite in Costa de Caparica. We arrived early afternoon, so after a quick lunch we got the bus into Lisbon. The route took us over the April 25 bridge. They call it a sister bridge to the Golden Gate in San Francisco and it is very similar. We spent the next 3 hours wandering around, up to the castle for views, to the Se Cathedral and to the square called Terreiro do Paco. We didn't see any signs for the tourist information office, and not having looked up it's location in advance, we were unable to find it and pick up a map. I think we found most major sights, and headed back to the camp via Belem using the train, ferry and bus (1 hour journey).

The following day we got on the bus at 9am to the Trafaria ferry terminal and then caught the ferry to Belem. We spent the whole day here. It is a lovely area of Lisbon with monuments overlooking the water and the UNESCO site of Jeronimos Monastery. As well as checking out these we went to two museums. The first was the Coach museum, a collection of Royal carriages from the 16th-19th centuries. It is housed in the 18th century Royal Palace riding school, which itself is a wonderful building.

Our second museum was the Maritime museum which was huge! It had endless ship models, instruments, paintings, uniforms and boats on display. We spent 2 hours there and could have spent longer, but our brains couldn't compute anything more to do with boats. We both agreed that we enjoyed learning about the 15th and 16th century exploration that the Portuguese did and was the main reason we had gone to the museum.

The monastery

The tower of Belem

A Henry the navigator statue at the Maritime museum

After Lisbon we headed across the April 25 bridge and half an hour north to Sintra. Sintra is a beautiful town and the location of several castles. We parked in town for a walk to see the National Palace of Sintra. Dale must have been feeling adventurous as we then drove to the Pena Palace and Monserrate Park, which were on steep narrow roads. We thought that surely these must be one way roads as there was provision for parking on them too. At one point another car came the other way, so I'm still not sure. There is also a bus that does this route to ferry passengers from the various Palaces back to Sintra.

The April 25 Bridge

The National Palace of Sintra

Next on the express tour of Portugal was Obidos, a beautiful town on top of a hill. Portugal is very hilly so to date we have seen many beautiful town views. A highlight of this town for me was the Santa Maria church which had stunning tiles on the walls. The town walls afforded great views of the town and there was also a chocolate festival going on. Unfortunately most of the action was in a special area for 7 euro entry each, but we managed to see special stalls that shop owners had set up and a cake decoration contest for free.

The Santa Maria Church