castles and wine

Will and I woke up early and headed to the train station. After one confusing transfer and about 4 hours, we were there! Grabbing a quick coffee and pastry (the best I had the whole trip) we walked about 25 minutes uphill to our airbnb. Sweaty and tired, we asked for recommendations from the host, and headed straight to the Moorish Castle.

Sintra had an immediate charm. Yes its a tourist city, but there were plenty of local people doing their thing, most shops were small and cute bakeries and restaurants. After more uphill travel, we explored the moorish castle with plenty of time to spare, and headed to Pena palace to explore the grounds.

above is the moorish castle, the last one has pena in the background

Will and I had a bad/sad fight on the pena grounds, and I ripped off my beautiful nails that had lasted so long :(

He was homesick. He said some stuff that hurt my feelings, I went distant rather than asking for clarification. It was fine, but both parties shed tears and we ended up with 7+ miles of walking and still needing to get home and eat.

We stopped at a Tapas place, Tira's Tapas, and had amazing food and wine. Broke eggs and duck rice were some of the best things I had the entire trip. Plus there was a cat.

The next morning I got up and walked around. Once will was up we got pastel de nata at an award winning place (it was delicious, we decided we like them warm) and headed to our third castle.

Quinta de Regalria had amazing grounds. It was beautiful.

Lunch we headed to another delicious spot and tried some classics, then we wandered downtown Sintra to see the tile work, grab some bread, and I tried the cherry liquor in a chocolate shot glass.

Finished off the night a Tira Tapas again, and headed to bed!

I found a cool market the next morning and we walked around, grabbed more pastries, and headed to lisbon. 

Per Will's request, we got McDonalds, where you can buy a beer as well. It was better than in the US for sure, but still McDonalds. That evening we went to see the Belhem tower, but it was under construction :( Still got a nice walk in!

Will got hangry at the end of the night and couldn't walk anymore, so we did uber eats and got pizza.

The next morning, I grabbed coffee and a cake at the bakery, and we headed to the airport!

Uneventful flights home, but we did arrive at the perfect time to carpool home with my family!

We stayed up late exchanging stories from our travels and finally resting.