2023 European Adventure 7 September

Day 2 in Lisbon. Bfast at the hotel and then picked up by the tour guide at 9 for our tour of Sintra. Shared the minibus with 6 Americans but they werent too bad.Sintra is a mountain village up on a hill overlooking Lisbon. Took about half an hour to get there. Main attraction is the Pena Palace which was originally a medieval monastry but became the residence of the Portugese royal family. The family had a fairly chequered career which included assassinations, being thrown out by Napoleon and finally being banished when Portugal became a republic in 1910. The palace is an extraordinary building on top of the hill and is actually the inspiration for the Neuschhwanstein Palace in Bavaria which in turn was the model for Disney's fantasyland palace. We were greeted with a thick fog when we arrived but by the time the interior walk was finished the fog began to clear but returned later in the afternoon. Difficult climb from the car park to the castle on wet cobbles. After we finished the tour we spent time in the quaint village where more beautiful Portugese pastries were tried. the tour then took us to the coast - spectacular surfing beaches and to the western extremity of Europe at cape Rock. Back home at about 5:30, cleaned up Anne then off to tapas again which was great. Pretty exhausted tonight - off to catch the train to Porto in the morning. Note:For some unknown reason photos no longer load onto the blog site -- never had this problem in the past but apparently Google has changed the rules and it just uploads gobbeldygook. Will put some photos on Facebook.