Lisbon - 2

The Pena Palace.

After finishing in Queluz we drove to Sintra and visited Pena Palace. Perched high on a hill, they say it can be seen from Lisbon on a clear day.  The palace started out as a small monastery which was ruined in the earthquake of 1755.  It was King Ferdinand that decided to rebuild the monastery into a Romantic style summer palace.  Its walls have now been restored to their original colours and together with its tiling, it has a fairy-tale appearance that looks like something you would find in a Disney Movie.

We drove along the coast and stopped at Cabo da Roca, the most western point of Europe.  Basically, you could call this Europe’s “Lands End”.

After visiting two beautiful palaces our next stop at the seaside town of Cascais was just a little disappointing. Although beautiful, it’s beaches, streets and cafés were all crowded with tourists.  Hang on, what are we!!

We had a few hours of free time once we arrived back in Lisbon, so we decided to stay in town and just revisited some of the places we had been to before.  Playing tour guides to Sharon and Peter, we took them to a couple of the most popular squares.  We ate paella and drank a lot of sangria before heading back to the ship. Like true diehards we hung out at deck 11 for our 11pm sail away, drinking our Portuguese port we had purchased during the day.