June 18th – 26th June (Portugal)
We left Seixal early in the morning to catch the tide and motored across the river to Lisbon. There are numerous marinas, but friends had recommended the Marina Parque das Nações, which is part of the site of Expo 98. It’s very quiet and quite a distance out of town, however there is a lovely waterside walkway and plenty of bars and restaurants. After we’d hosed down Mistroma, cleaned the dinghy and fenders, we went off to do some shopping. For the first time since we were in France two years ago, we came across a proper DIY store. It was huge and we finally managed to get plastic for the mark III version of the mosquito netting for the windows, along with quite a few other things that we wanted and hadn’t seen before. Mike had great fun!
We visited the Oceanarium, which is only a couple of minutes from the marina. Although we enjoyed the tour, it was nowhere near as good or as large as the one we had visited in Brest, when we were storm bound two years ago. Our next outing was by train to Sintra, which is about 28km from Lisbon. This was once the royal town of the country and is considered to be one of the wonders of Portugal, attracting thousands of visitors each year. At the station we hopped aboard the tourist loop bus, which winds its way through very narrow, one way streets, into the town centre and then up an equally narrow and steep road into the hills. According to information we found about the bus it stated “as the roads are narrow, steep and have switchbacks it is highly advisable for older passengers to sit during the journey”. Thank goodness we managed to get a seat or we may have been thrown about like skittles!!
We visited the Pena Palace, which sits on the hilltop with wonderful panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. The exterior is like a fairy tale castle from a Walt Disney film and inside there are numerous staterooms complete with furniture and personal items, as though the family might return at any moment. We then walked through the palace grounds and over to the Moor’s Castle on the next hilltop. This is considered to be one of the oldest castles in Portugal, dating back to the 7th century. Apparently there are 500 steps to the top of the tower. We went up one of the towers, but my knees started protesting too much, so decided to give the other one a miss. We had intended walking back down into town but thought it would be more sensible to get the bus. By this time it was quite late in the afternoon, so after a quick lunch we headed back to the marina. We had intended to go back for a second day to visit the town itself but unfortunately ran out of time.
We had a couple of days wandering around Lisbon and visited the Gulbenkian Museum, which was very interesting. We also had a trip on one of the old trams, which apparently is a “must-do”, but we both felt it was a bit overrated as it was packed with people and you couldn’t see much and it was also pouring for part of the journey.
The highlight of our stay in Lisbon was a trip to Queluz to visit the National Palace, which is like a mini Versailles and is set in beautiful formal gardens. Although the outside of the palace looks very tired, the interior state rooms are beautiful. Unfortunately, it seems that this palace doesn't get nearly the same amount of tourist traffic as nearby Sintra which is a shame because it's really worth a visit. Perhaps if more people came to see it, more money would be available for its upkeep. While there we also saw a riding display from the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art which we both really enjoyed.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Lisbon and could quite easily have stayed longer, but we can always come back when we make our way north again. We headed back down the river to Cascais for a couple of nights before starting south once more.
