The Trip – Part One – Portugal

I’m going to warn you, there is no way to do this trip justice in two posts. That is my plan… one post for Portugal and one for Madrid. I will attempt to pick the top photos from 456 taken to give you the essence of our trip. The only way you will truly see the entire context of my week is to find me on facebook. My name is Leighann Marquiss. I’m not on facebook very often, but I will upload my trip pictures so everyone can see them. If you’re interested. If you’re not, my feelings aren’t hurt. And now on to part one…

If I had one word for Portugal it would be ’tile’. We saw tile everywhere. On the exterior of buildings, on the interior walls and in mosaics. It was prolific to say the least.

We spent a lot of time walking and sightseeing. Lisbon was an interesting city – easy to get around on foot for most of the tourist attractions. There was one section of the city called Belem that we took a city bus to. I highly recommend seeing the monastery in Belem. It is one of the most ornate buildings I’ve ever seen. It was top on my list of ‘most ornate buildings’ for three days. Then we visited the cathedral in Toledo. The cathedral in Toledo is ridiculous, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I also recommend the Tower of Belem, eating a pasteis de Belem (a famous pastry), and the National Museum of Archeology. I’m not much of a museum goer when I’m traveling… but the Archeology museum had an exhibit with Egyptian mummies. I took a class on ancient Egypt in college so I jumped at the chance to see the mummies in real life. It was surreal looking at something craftsmen worked on thousands of years ago.

I also recommend going up in one of the elevators (free entry all the way to the top with your all-day bus card) to get a good view of the city. We went at night and the view was absolutely amazing. I had to stand close to the railing to get a good picture. It reminded me I am afraid of heights. Ha!

(The National Theatre in Lisbon and I think Plaza Rossio)

Our favorite place by far in Portugal is a little town reachable by train from Lisbon called Sintra. Bridget and I could’ve seen everything we wanted to in Lisbon in a day, maybe a day and half, and agreed we needed two days in Sintra. If we had not both seen Neuschwanstein in Germany, we’d probably want another half-day to see Luwig’s nephew’s castle, Pena, situated on a hill in Sintra. Instead, we took in the Castelo dos Mouros and the Quinta de Regaleira, both a short walk from the city center.

The Castelo dos Mouros is the ruins of a moorish fortress from the 9th century. It is known as the Miniature Great Wall. Henry and Bridget’s husband, Jason, hiked the Great Wall of China several years ago so B and I were excited to do our own Great Wall.

This picture is from the Castelo dos Moures in the fog but reminds me a lot of the pictures Henry brought home from his trip.

The Quinta de Regaleira is a mansion of a very rich Portugese man completed in 1910. The biggest disappointment is the interior of the house… the walls and ceilings were amazing, but there was no furniture in the house. You just walked though empty rooms or saw drawings of the architecture. However in addition to being an incredibly ornate and well-appointed estate, the house sits on land filled with caves, springs and natural grottoes. These were not disappointing. The original owner incorporated these caves and grottoes into the placement of fountains and buildings so there are secret passageways throughout the gardens. I recommend taking a flashlight to be able to explore the grottoes. We were unaware of the grottoes so were left without a light. However, we still enjoyed exploring the grounds. It was like something from a storybook!

Two things to eat while in Portugal: The Pasteis de Belem as mentioned above

And Portugese steak. I’m going to figure out how to make this if it is the last thing I do. It doesn’t look like much, but the flavor was out of this world.

There is so much I left out, but hopefully this gives you a taste of the Portugal half of our trip. Still to come…. Spain.