Day 6, Saturday, Three lanes of cars on a one way street.

Today we saw our area in the daylight. Its very nice. There are cafes everywhere. Above us are two big hills/mountains, one with the old Moorish castle (ruined) and the other with the Pena Palace. Below us is a view of small towns, forests, and then the ocean.

This morning we went for breakfast at the cafe under our apartment. The pastries were definitely higher quality than in northern Portugal. I didn't think the pastries in northern Portugal were low quality, but I might have if I had tasted these first. It must be the competition, because walking 2 blocks down the street we live on, you'll pass 4-5 cafes. We went for a walk towards the train station because Emily remembered there was a good view from there (which there was), but on the way we found a pedestrian street with a bunch of vendors selling things. In some ways it was kind of like a bunch of mini garage sales, because it was old junk. But Portuguese junk is fascinating to look at. You would see old plastic toys next to ancient skeleton keys next to wind-up watches next to an old brass telescope.

We bought Daniel a metal VW bug which was pretty beat up but still intact. He loved it, driving it around the cobblestone street and showing everyone who walked by. Of course there was the inevitable fit when we took it away after he tried to drive it off the railing over a 200 ft cliff after a few warnings. What saved us from the fit was watching a train leave the train station.

We drove to Quinta da Regaleira, which is on the far side of Sintra. We could have walked, it's less than 3 kilometers, but we wanted Emily's feet to last the day. Looking for parking, we took a side street which should have been designated one way. After encountering a couple of cars, we wondered if we were going the wrong way on a one-way street, except we knew we'd seen signs facing our direction giving our direction legitimacy. And there were signs facing the other way. When we encountered a car, we backed up (or they did) until we found a slightly bigger-than-normal bulge in the road, pulled our mirrors in, and careful inched past each other. To make matters worse, people who wanted to visit Quinta da Regaleira were also parking on this road (but I shouldn't judge, because I ended up doing it too). We found a nice bulge and parked in it. Emily had to crawl out the driver's door because the car was pressed 1 inch away from a rock wall. What's funny is that this is not the first ridiculously narrow road I've driven down in Portugal. There have been quite a few. And all I can say is that people in Portugal have to be less averse to paint scratches on their cars than people in the USA.

Quinta da Regaleira is a mansion, a chapel, and some other buildings, and then a huge garden of odd, mysterious things. Imagine lots of big trees, moss and lichen everywhere, and random paths and tunnels leading off to unknown places. The whole estate is on a steep hill, and you start at the bottom. As you go up, everything gets more rustic, organic, natural, etc. So at the bottom are beautifully, intricately carved marble buildings and statues, and towards the top there are lots of “natural” stone arches (they look natural, but they are man-made), caves with ponds, and the paths are smaller and more winding.

I could describe a lot of cool surprises we found, but my favorite was the inverted tower or also called the initiation well. It's a deep hole with a spiral stair case around the perimeter of the hole. The stairs are enclosed by arches, so it looks like the Tower of Pisa except inside out and upside down. At the bottom of the “well” is a tile mosaic of a compass. That's neat enough, but from the bottom of the well there are walking tunnels which lead to various parts of the estate. One comes out at another well (the “unfinished well”, which is actually finished, but made to look unfinished), another comes out behind a pond with a waterfall, another comes out inside a beautiful building set in the side of the hill, and I can't remember where the fourth tunnel comes out.

I was carrying Daniel with a baby carrier backpack thing, and he was asleep the whole time until we got out of an underground labyrinth. We were about to leave, but he was having so much fun we let him lead us into the mansion, which we were going to skip because how could it top the monastery at Alcobaça? Well let me tell you, it was amazing in there. Huge detailed mosaics on the floor, fireplaces with such fine carvings that you could stare at them for hours, and a library room with mirrors that made it feel like you were standing on a floor elevated very high in the air (we didn't realize it was an illusion until we were about to leave the room).

We drove home, got lost in the one-way streets. Emily was super tired, and so was Daniel so I went off wandering the streets looking for food. I found a place off the main street which was filled with locals, and ordered two items which were shots in the dark since I didn't know what the Portuguese words meant and the guy I was talking to didn't know how to describe them. Luckily, Emily loved what she got (some kind of thin steak with a delicious sauce of pickled cauliflower, carrots... I don't know, it sounds strange, and it was, but it was really good) and french fries. Mine was another form of bacalhau (cod), completely different from the last bacalhau I got, and I enjoyed it. Daniel was really tired tonight, but he was so good and happy.

Oh, and we asked Ligia where to find a laundromat, but she offered to let us use her washing machine. So nice. Daniel likes her too. He showed her his stash of leaves he had in his backpack (“ba ba”).

Tomorrow... I think we're taking the train to Lisbon. 

 

Quinta da Regaleira

Quinta da Regaleira

This is the "unfinished well".

A cork tree.

Inside inverted tower, initiation well.

 At the exit of one of the tunnels form the inverted tower.

 Crying because he dropped the flashlight and it wouldn't turn on anymore.

He must miss Sam.

"raaaawr!" -Daniel

 Inside the Quinta da Regaleira mansion

The floating library floor illusion room.

On the roof of the mansion.

Daniel enjoying the grass. Or being stubborn and disobedient. With a photo, you can never be sure.