It’s a short walk to the train station. Like most public buildings here, it’s ornate,
adorned with intricate tile mosaics and showing signs of deferred
maintenance. It’s early, and the
incoming cars are packed to bursting.
Fortunately, we’re swimming against the tide, and our train leaving
Lisbon is lightly populated. We ride for
about 45 minutes to the line’s terminus at Sintra, today’s destination.
Signage in Portugal, as will become a recurring theme of
this trip, is somewhere between perplexing and nonexistent, so there’s a bit of
confusion for transportation to the top of the hill. We’re about to board a public bus but a
smooth talking south Asian cabbie convinces us that for the same price we can
ride in his Mercedes van. On the 10
minute ride up, he gives us a brief history of Pena Palace and the dozens of
surrounding mansions. It seems that in 1838,
King Ferdinand II wanted a party pad for the warmer months. His solution was to build a summer castle
modeled after the Neuschwanstein castle in Germany (the same one Walt Disney
would use to model the Cinderella Castle in the 1960s) at the top of the
mountain here in Sintra with views all the way to the nearby sea. His huge, weeks-long summer ragers quickly became the place to be
seen, so Dukes, Vicounts, courtesans and anyone else who could afford it started building their own summer estates down and around the mountain in order to
secure their spot at the soirees. The
aristocracy long gone, Sintra has become a beautiful spot for us commoners to wander
the manors, take in the views and listen for the reverberations of revelries
long past.
Dropped off at the entrance, it’s another steep 10 minute
trek to the doors of Pena Palace. Right
away, the whimsy of the architecture is evident – brightly colored walls,
playful spaces, fantastic lookouts. We’re
among the first in the gates and spend an hour or so wandering, photographing,
playing while we have the place mostly to ourselves.
Next we set out on the steep, well marked hike to Cruz Alta,
a large cross set atop the very highest rock on the mountain, symbolizing that even
Kings have to answer to somebody. It’s a
good spot to take in the scenery and mug for some pix.
Third stop is a 20 minute, blessedly downhill hike to the
Moorish Castle. Built a few hundred
years before the Pena Palace, this structure shows the stark contrast between
the Moors and King Ferdy Deux. The Moors
were conquerors, not frat boys, and this castle is a fortress purpose built to
keep what they rightfully stole.
Fortunately, this example of Brutalist architecture also offers sweeping
views, vantage points to check out the other estates and great Insta-selfie
opportunities.
From here, we do our last hike of the day, a surprisingly
difficult 1-mile downhill into the village of Sintra. Along the way we pass Vila Sesseti, a
remarkably tasteful mansion with well-designed gardens and lots of fun water
elements integrated beautifully into the hillside. I’d like to think that if I was in the Keep
Up With The Prince Joneses game back in the day, that this would be my
entry.
By the time we reach the village, we’re famished. Our cabbie told us an
out-of-the-beaten-tourist-path restaurant, but we don’t make it that far,
picking a place smack dab in the middle of the crowded historic district. We’re willing to concede some quality for
expedicancy, and the smooth talking frontman of Restaurante Alcobaca seats us
immediately in the cute, albit kitsch, space.
Alas, we should have learned our lesson about pre-judging by now. Our
host is also our waiter, helps us with our selections and doesn’t even try to
upsell the wine when I gave him the chance.
“We pick our house wine to go with all our food. You don’t need anything else.” He’s right of course, and the cool, local
white is just dry enough, minerally but not overly acidic, to pair beautifully
with Mandy’s dish of local sardines, proving once again that if it grows
together, it goes together. I’m
presented with an entire octopus – that’s right, an entire octopus, not just a
few octoparts – that fully covers the plate and is served with roasted potatoes
and a blessed ton of fresh garlic. It is
expertly prepared, just-right tender, slightly salted, and pairs nicely with a
couple of beers. The total bill is under
60€ and I’m certain my entrée alone would have been more than that in the
States.
Refreshed we set out for our last stop in Sintra, Quinta Da
Regaleira. This is a special place with
a checkered history. The original place
was built in the 1700s but fell into disrepair over the centuries as such
spaces have a tendency to do. It was
finally purchased by Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro in the 1892 who restored
and reimagined it to bring together the three passions of his life… His wife,
his pursuit of alchemy and his participation in the secret societies of the
Knights Templar and Free Masons. For his
wife, the main house was impeccably finished in exotic woods, the petite chapel
lavishly gilded and the grounds beset with art.
For his scientific pursuits, plenty of out buildings and open spaces of
toxic chemical interactions and no small number of accidental explosions. But he saved the most remarkable feature for
his secret brethren. For their hazing
and other rituals, he built the Initiation Well, a 120 foot deep pit designed
to suggest man’s decent into hell as you wind down the outer spiral to the
bottom. The entrance was concealed by a
huge bolder which could be moved into place to keep people out or seal them in,
and when the top was covered it became perfectly black. Protruding from the bottom is a series of
caves and chambers just to add a few more options for the ceremonial perversions. I don’t think Ant'ny ever envisioned it as a
major attraction, but here we are and it is a genuine marvel.
We’re trying to make the 4:10 train, so we hire an Ape
(pronounced OP-Aay, referring to the 3 wheeled multiple passenger Vespas of the
same name, but most commonly referred to by their Asian slang name tuk-tuk) to
get us back to the station. I’m sure it
can’t be more then 20 horsepower, but our driver is throwing it around like a
sprint car on a dirt track. What we
didn’t know is that it’s a very, very long ride back because the roads are all
one way and he has to go all the way around the outskirts of the town to get there. We miss the 4:10 train and barely catch the
4:40, but the Ape ride is a hoot.
Back in Lisbon, we indulge in a well-deserved afternoon nap before we head out to dinner at Kikos, a Japanese/Mexican fusion restaurant by one of the city’s hottest chefs. The space was created for this purpose and this purpose only, the back wall being dominated by a lovely but massive Portuguese tile mural depicting and Mexican and Japanese woman (although we did question the artist’s depiction of the former with a mustache). We sit at the chef’s counter and watch course after course being carefully prepared and artistically plated. It’s nice contrast to the traditional Portuguese meals we have had and way to experience what the modern chefs are doing here.
We’re already at the top of the hill, so we decide to experience
Bairro Alto at night. The quiet café’s
have turned into raucous bars of all genres – gaudy 5€ per-liter slushy drink
joints blaring American 80s music, smoky jazz joints, TV laden sports bars
flashing futbol and rugby matches from around Europe. It’s everything you’d expect on Bourbon Street
or Picadilly Circus, but with some local flavor. We decide to grab the last table at an
authentic looking Fada place and are shoehorned in a tiny 2-top,
shoulder-to-shoulder with our fellow patrons.
The band, the frontman guitar player, the baritone mandolin player and
the female vocalist, are all very good and the music is more upbeat then we had
been expecting, but oddly fussy. The place
is packed, everyone is sitting, listening respectfully, enjoying, applauding at
the end of each song, but even so the lead singer warns the crowd to be silent during
the performance while thanking the crowd for their silence in the same
sentence. We laugh all the way home
trying to imagine what Sunday dinner is like for his poor kids.
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