Thanks to the advice of JR, the latter part of today was all about Sintra, the tiny town surrounded by hills just a short train ride West of Lisbon…in theory anyway!

Got into town and eventually found a nice hotel up the hill from the center of the old town. It’s an old spanish-style villa from another time. The window in my room opens like shutters do, and yes, it even has shutters on the inside to keep the morning light out.
From the hotel it’s a decent hike up to the two sites well worth seeing. They are: The Pena Palace and The Moorish Castle. They are a hilly, 20-min walk from each other, but the sights along the way make it worth it. There are a series of lakes between the two that make for picturesque hiking, complete with horse-drawn carriages and swans and geese. It was windy as could be at the top, so it was a good day to avoid the beaches. The pictures should be more telling, but at present it’s impossible to post them.
The Moorish Castle had a wall on the north side resembling a shortened version of the Great Wall of China. Beautiful and quite rugged. The path along parts of it was only about 18 inches wide with 30 foot drops to one side. In america there certainly would have been ropes and danger signs and the like. It’s nice that they let you figure all that out on your own here…I guess as long as no one falls off the edge!

More tomorrow from the train to the southern coast…reserved a room for there nights in … Well I can’t remember and am too tired to reach over and grab the book

Bon noite!

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