Portugal. Journey to the edge of Europe. Part 2
Sintra
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Portugal. Journey to the edge of Europe. Part 1
Sintra is a large city, which consists of huge parks and palaces. On the satellite map, this city is completely green. It is located an hour from the capital. On this day, before leaving Lisbon, we bought 15.5 euro passes for the train and all the buses of Sintra, saving ourselves a couple of euros. The number of castles in the city significantly exceeds daylight hours. Therefore, you must choose. First we chose the most popular Pena Castle.
Foam
Probably, this castle is not only the most popular, but also the most expensive. We paid 11 euros for the park + views. With entrances to the castle, the price was about 15 euros. But we're not big fans of museums, so it was just the right ticket for us. Climbing the mountain and seeing the castle close, we began to regret that we had not paid for the entrance ticket, but since the surveys were also on the territory of the castle, we essentially didn’t lose anything, we just couldn’t go inside the castle, but calmly walked around all of it viewing platforms. The views were impeccable. For only one view from the balcony of Pena, Sintra took a high place among what we saw during the trip. There were many views, the views were different and all as one breathtaking.
Forests spreading into the distance, the ocean stretching beyond the horizon. Mountains that have not yet been conquered by us. And hectares of parks to be passed. Charm! Rather go to the parks! Having descended from the castle, we found a bunch of pointers to all sorts of interesting things within a radius of a kilometer from us.
The park probably took second place among the parks we saw, after the bot garden in Rio de Janeiro. This park was like a magical forest from a fairy tale about Snow White.
It was very dense and impassable, the trees were covered with ivy, huge boulders were scattered here and there, the paths led to the hills, from where gorgeous views of the foam opened.
One of the views
This is where you should spend your time, not in the capital. We had a snack in a small cafe with tuna sandwiches. In this country, a day without fish is crossed out of life. About three hours flew by in 5 minutes. We had to move on, but the anxious feeling did not leave us, what if we didn’t see something else in the park.
The bus going to the center was caught the second time, as the first one decided not to stop, as he considered that he had enough people. Having reached the center, we changed the bus line, though unsuccessfully. The one we wanted to sit on could not reach us and broke. The girl selling tickets put us on a bus of another branch and told the driver to drop us off at a certain place and indicate the direction where to move.
Regaleira
Unbeknownst to us, we have chosen another bombed-out castle. At first, he looked simpler than Pena, and cheaper. If I'm not mistaken, 6.5 euros per person. While photographing Dasha against the backdrop of the castle, a selfie stick so long came out of one of the towers that the photographer most likely lengthened it by special order. For some reason, I had a picture that this evil professor was catching lightning to enslave all the package tourists, but the weather was clear, and the professor turned out to be more bearded than angry.
While we were wandering along the cozy alleys and turrets, our eyes caught sight of the entrance to an inconspicuous cave. There were no lanterns, so sometimes by touch, sometimes bumping into lanterns, tourists ran between openings and loopholes.
There were underground lakes in the cave. Moreover, they reflected the cave so skillfully that at one moment Dasha stopped me a step away from falling into the lake. I saw in this place a descent down under a bath with a lake. Stopping, I could not even understand whether Dasha was joking or serious. But when I touched it with my hand, I realized that just now the story could gain even those momentum. It seems that they climbed everywhere and you can go to the exit from the territory of the castle, but one picture hanging in the castle suggested that we obviously didn’t see something grandiose here. The painting depicted a massive descent into the dungeon in the form of a spiral corridor with arches.
Going up to the guard at the exit, I showed a reproduction of the painting on my tablet. The guy nodded and said that you can get there through the cave, which is located behind the fountain with large lizards. So we missed something, at least a fountain with lizards. We started walking at the direction of the guy, and noticed another entrance to the cave. This cave was much longer than the previous ones and with a glowing line along the stalagmites.
After going around a small lake, we came to a fountain with lizards, which means we are even further away. We soon reached a 30-meter underground tower leading outside. We were already delighted with this castle, and now it has finally conquered us. It was Dasha who noticed and took a picture of that picture in the castle, my good girl! The next couple of hours flew by.
Now, we need to think. The time was already around 16:00 and that was enough for another castle, but you also need to visit the most extreme point in Europe from where buses will soon stop running. We had a reserve day on this trip, which was never used, the prospect of spending it in Lisbon did not please us at all. But green Sintra was even very pleasing. Then now we go further, and tomorrow we will continue.
Cape Roca
We drove for about an hour, but our travel card was valid and this is the main thing. There was such a strong wind on the cape, and a conceptual lighthouse, that I seemed to be in Iceland. I haven't been there yet and don't really know what it looks like in real life. But I always imagined it exactly as Cape Roca looks like. We did it, we completed our entire planned route! We are standing over a cliff and looking somewhere towards Brazil. Buses run approximately every 50 minutes, which is just enough to climb in the wind. Consider spending 50 minutes in Iceland per trip. Near the stop there was a shop where one guy from the staff wore a T-shirt with the inscription 2045. I could not resist and asked the guy what was wrong.
The guy said that he had already seen me in 2030, and in the same store. And he said that until 2030, I definitely should not bathe. He also said that he knew the winner in Euro 2016, but he would not say. How I love it when there are some threads related to the future, it's like that unforgettable dream. In the meantime, our bus arrived, and we went for a fish dinner in the already familiar Cascais. This time we got acquainted with traditional sardines. Moreover, the amount of garnish clearly emphasized how many sardines they had.
Fish meals in Portugal are clearly one of the main attractions of the country, I will miss them. We also discovered McFlurry with Snickers at McDonald's. Cascais did not want to let us go, when there were about four minutes left before the train, our travel card did not work at the turnstile. Since it was in the evening, and the Portuguese are not used to straining in the evenings, it was very problematic to find staff. And only one card did not work, and Dasha and I were on opposite sides of the barricade. There was still panic. Moreover, the control in trains works well. Each of us, for our part, decided something, the locals tried in every possible way to help Dasha make her card work. There was about a minute left before departure, Dasha ran off into the distance to look for staff. It suddenly dawns on me that we have a lot of cards, they all look the same, but for different purposes. This is such a feature of the Portuguese transport system. The cards were in pairs in different places, and even each had a set of specific vehicles. Some magic cards mixed up. At that moment, Dasha's card was picked in the office and she was told the same thing. In a panic at the speed of sound, we sort through the cards and finally profit, one of the cards let in. At one of the last moments we ran into the train. Now you can relax.
Montserrat
In the morning we woke up from the fact that construction began outside the window and some worker shouted something to another in our native Ukrainian. Suddenly. Wasting no time, we quickly set off back to Sintra. We decided to take a walk to the planned estate. The estate turned out to be treacherously far away, and even in the hills-mountains.
At one point, my nerves gave out, and I said out loud everything I think about the number of mountains that we have passed over the past 11 days. And I also complained that for 11 years I had to walk uphill to school every morning. Yes, we went through more mountains during this trip than Kotigoroshko plowed on a snake. But fortunately this estate did appear after an hour of walking in front of us.
No matter how hard the estate tried, it failed to surpass the previous two castles. The parks were great though. The estate had displays where the interactive host could answer your questions. On a green meadow under the shade of a large tree, we tried to lie down for all those routes we had overcome.
The last time we checked out from the same hotel, we went to the airport. At the entrance to the subway to the terminal selling obligatory reusable cards, as always, there was a queue of still uncertain travelers. By choosing just four girls, we saved them two euros by giving them our cards and explaining what the green card was. This moment was like passing the baton. Now it is their turn to explore this mountainous country, and we go home to rest and write stories.
The way home
Sweets for the trail
Then there was a difficult and long route home with a night and difficult transfer in Madrid. The transfer process between the two planes took two hours, setting a record for the hemorrhoids of a transfer. When we finally boarded our final plane at 3:00 am, I had the hope of getting a good night's sleep on a six-hour flight and flying straight to work so I wouldn't waste extra vacation days. But the flight turned out to be 3 hours shorter than we thought. It’s pretty hard for me to fall asleep on the planes, and next to me were an Odessa citizen with his friend, who were annealing funny pearls and obviously weren’t going to sleep, laughing at me that I still want to get to work from the plane. The stewardess kept trying to shove the seven carry-on luggage of the Odessa citizen on the plane. When during the first hour I almost fell asleep, one of the passengers apparently got to the microphone and yelled in a loud voice, “Let's go to the count of three! How can you hear me. . ! ? “Here the speech was interrupted. A second later, the Odessan declared that this time he was not the annealer. For the first two seconds I tried not to laugh so as not to disturb my sleep, but it was too late. I was already shaking with laughter, and the fact that I tried not to laugh made me even funnier. Then the guys sitting next to me decided to measure who got on this flight with what cool promotions, when the Odessa citizen asked me how much UIA tickets cost “probably 300 dollars, ” a friend of the Odessa citizen asked me with sympathy. My promotional price obviously upset many) The girl in bewilderment repeated my last phrase “I caught it in 11 months... ” Then the stream of pearls from Odessa continued. Under which of the jokes I fell asleep I don’t remember, but I managed to sleep even more than an hour.
After this trip and the plane, the most I could do was go to work remotely that day. My legs hurt for two more days.
Interesting note: On the Internet, I have read reviews more than once about "How cheap everything is in Europe! ", Having visited 26% of the Schengen countries, and far from the most expensive ones, I authoritatively declare that it is cheaper in Ukraine.
Trip information
Date of travel: 17.06. 2016 - 29.06. 2016
Trip type: Self-guided
Duration: 12 full days
Visa: Got it yourself
Flight tickets: MAU-KLM-TAP-MAU
Hotels: Booked on booking. com
Excursions: Almost everyone bought a trip to the peaks in some local agency.
Trip difficulty: 9/10 (Difficult)
