January 19th, 2015:
A quick 40 minute train ride from Lisbon and you arrive in Sintra, complete with Moorish castle ruin, the multi-hued Pena Palace and a cute little town that is over run with tourists. The guide books all recommend taking a day trip on Monday from Lisbon because the sights in Lisbon are closed on Monday and everything is open in Sintra. I foolishly followed the Lonely Planets advice – as did every other tourist in Lisbon.
I really wish I had swapped days and came to Sintra on Tuesday and hit up some of the sights in Lisbon on Monday. The Lisbon sights were so crowded that I didn’t end up going inside anyplace anyways, and if I had seen them on Monday the outsides wouldn’t have been as crushed with tourists. Oh well, live and learn – always doubt the reasoning of guidebooks.
Sintra was still quite pleasant and since I chose to hike the 1 mile uphill to the Castle and Palace, I saw very few people (who mostly took the shuttle) on the trail and had a good hour wandering the hillsides alone before once again joining the crush of people to gawk at old piles of rock.
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