Lisbon Trip #4: Pena Palace, Sintra

OK, let's continue with the trip, shall we? On Monday we went to Sintra by train (I thought Monday would be good because most museums in Lisbon are closed on Mondays). We bought the train tickets the day before so that we didn't have to queue at the ticket office. The tickets had no date on them (could be used like using metro tickets, no conductor on the train) and could be used any day. We arrived at the platform 10 minutes before the next train was leaving, so we didn't have to wait too long. I think on workdays there's a train to Sintra every 30 minutes. The round-trip ticket cost €4,30/person and the journey lasts 40 minutes.

Here's a pic of R2 on the train on the way back to Sintra.

When we left Lisbon that morning, it was sunny and gorgeous. But alas, it got cloudy as we got closer to Sintra. Here's what I saw right when we went out of the train station:

When we arrived at Sintra, the cold wind was blowing and I chose the wrong bus for us to board. I had read online that we could take the 434 (or was it 343?) bus to go to the tourist attractions because it was a hilly area. Instead we found a hop on and hop off tour bus, so we boarded that one. I was thinking of visiting two places at the very least, but I wanted to wait until the weather got better, so I took the hop on and hop off bus that went around the coast (it meant it would take us at least 1 hour before getting to one of the two places I'd like us to visit). Nobody actually stopped anywhere on any of the stops on the tour bus, though the driver did let us out for a little while on two stops to take photos.

Here is one of the stops where the bus driver let us get off for a few minutes to take some photos. It was crazy crazy cold wind!

We actually decided to only stop at Pena Palace (there was a stop before Pena where we were supposed to drop off, but due to my hunger and my need of toilet, we figured it'd be best to go straight to Pena instead). It was all in all a nice bus trip as we got to see many different areas of Sintra. It's definitely a beautiful place that's worth visiting on its own. Lots of lovely little houses here and there and palaces.

The ticket to visit Pena Palace and park (yes, there's a HUGE park around Pena Palace) was €11,50/person, but we also bought a bus ticket that cost €3/person to go from the entrance of the park to the Palace (it was an uphill walk - normally we don't mind walking, but it was SOOOOO cold that we'd rather take the bus instead).

The bus dropped us off right in front of the palace area. Here's a view of the crowd going inside the palace (yes, it was still cloudy at that time as the sun only came up later):

As I needed to go to the toilet and I was hungry, instead of going into the palace, we went to the restaurant right away HA HA HA HA HA HA...I had a duck quiche whereas hubby had a ham and cheese quiche with salad and I ordered a chocolate cake as well. I had hot tea, whereas hubby had coffee. They were very delicious and not too expensive, either. And boy, did it feel good to hold a hot cup of tea to warm up my hands! Here's what it looks like inside the restaurant:

The gift store is located below the restaurant, so we decided to buy some hoodie (the only thing available) there to keep us warm before roaming the palace. Here are some views of the palace and yes, thankfully the sun started to shine, though the wind was still VERY VERY cold and it could be VERY strong at times (it's very rare for the wind to be that strong in Sodankylä, so it took me off guard!).

Here are some photos of the Pena Palace (some photos were taken by mobile):

And here's a video clip I made of Pena Palace (the view of the palace from two different angles).


Here are some photos taken from inside the palace as we got to see different rooms in there. Plus I took some photos of the history, as well.

The last photo above is actually the King's bed if I remember correctly. I find this bed weird because even for a short person like me it feels so short (the length, I mean).

Anyway, after roaming the palace, we decided to skip going to the other place and wait for the bus back to the train station instead. We had to wait for about half an hour. Maybe next time we can visit Sintra again to check out the other places of interest there, but that day we were so cold and tired already, so we decided to go back to Lisbon instead.