Portugal Day 2, Sept 2024

21st Sept 2024

Day 2

Sintra town, 25 km from Lisbon is a must go place when in Lisbon. We went there by train and took local bus to our itineraries.

National Palace of Pena is a UNESCO site and a treasure of Portugal. The Roman styled castle sits on top of a hill in Sintra. The sight of this castle is majestic, charming and mesmerizing. 

The walk around the Palace walls, perched on high ground,  provide a stunning view of the city and surrounding. 

The elaborately painted colourful Palace with its magnificent sculptures were breathtakingly beautiful.

20 minutes walk on cobbled stone track brought us to another historical castle,  the Castle of the Moors (Castelo dos Mouros) built around the 8th century. The castle was built on high rocky outcrop that provided the Moors strategic vantage point to defend this region.

The steps are steep and physically challenging for me. But the views were awesome. 

Views from the top of the castle is beautiful.

We returned to Lisbon by train at Rossio Station. A much needed rest was deserved for an exhausting day, exhausted by endless steps to climb and descent.

This two colossal structures we viewed today testify the innovative power of humanity hundreds of years ago. Without machines, the builders were able to move tons of building materials up the remote steep slopes with raw human power. Certainly this was an unbelievable engineering masterpiece during that period of time where mechanised machines did not exist.