Sintra & Lagos, Portugal

We chose contrasting places for our first visit to Portugal.

Sintra, a green hilly Northern town near Lisbon with a small tourist centre and several amazing historic castles and palaces. The Quinta da Regaleira was a good choice; we had breakfast at a roadside inn and walked up there passed the line of public art sculptures. Decided to spend the day exploring the house and the grounds which were full of masonic references. The best part was going through the underground tunnels to the submerged tower which was supposed to represent the ascent from earth to heaven. Spooky, but we could have played for days.

We caught the train from Sintra to Lagos and, on the way, met David and Kate from Sydney. They provided good company and the five or so hours went quickly. The whiteness of the town was my first impression. The marina was bright with fluttering flags on small boats, and the tourists (mostly English) were traipsing up and down the long line of shops. We couldn't find a map so we got a taxi up through the strip of town to our hilltop motel which was pink on the outside and lined with tiles on the inside. We walked to the beach the next day but it was too breezy to really enjoy, so we went in search of our Aussie friends and had quite a few beers instead. The next night we wandered around the old town centre and felt sorry for the local tourist trade which seemed to be suffering from a reduction in numbers for this time of year. We watched a World Cup game in the square.

The night before we left we went to a restaurant and had grilled sole and fried squid (a whole one!). The owners wife turned out to be a Kiwi, Karen from Hastings. We chatted for hours then ambled home, happy to have discovered Lagos - but determined to return to Sintra one day.

Lizzie