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.

Lisbon Trip #3: Castelo de S. Jorge

From the Lisbon Cathedral, we went to the next stop to visit: Castelo de S. Jorge. The entrance ticket was €8.50/person. We were lucky enough that there wasn't a long queue yet at that time and it had started becoming warmer.

Here's the entrance towards Castelo de S. Jorge. You have to be careful there because cars go through the gate, as well. I was really tempted to buy one of the paintings sold there, but in the end I didn't.

Here are many random photos from the inside of Castelo de S. Jorge. What I love about Lisbon is that there are so many different high places to visit to look around the city, but because of the different heights, it's easy to have an undisturbed view of the whole city from those higher points because no high buildings are blocking your views.

In the first photo below, you can't see it clearly, but there's a bridge at the back and a statue across the bridge. It's a Jesus statue, but we didn't go there. 

After walking around for a while and going up and down the fortress, we bought some drinks at the cafe while watching some peacocks chasing one another (some of them climbed up the tree above us). Some of them were really loud, but it made people stop and watch their antics (and take photos), too he he he he...And yes, the peacock below was covering the entrance of the cafe, but the kind-hearted waiter was gentle with it. :-D

Yep, unfortunately it got cloudy again, so we left this place. Here's a lovely looking building we saw outside:

OK, I'll end it here, but the next post would be about the lovely Sintra and Pena Palace.

Lisbon Trip #2

OK, let's continue the tour then. After finding out where the train station was, we had no specific idea on where to go next, so we just went downtown to a place where there were lots of places to visit on the map ha ha...Our first stop was Arco da Rua Augusta. Rua Augusta is a place where there are lots of stores and cafes and restaurants and at the end of it, you can see a huge square. We paid €2,50/person to go up the arch to have a 360 degree view of Lisbon.

This is the arch:

There are lots of buses passing by this square. It's funny because when the sun is shining on one side of the square, people would flock towards that side to eat/drink outside, whereas the other side would be empty LOL!!!! There's also a metro station at one end of this square (that we only noticed later LOL!!!)

And here are some views from up there:

Here are the photo of the stairs. It felt kinda claustrophobic because it was a small one (only fit one person at a time). The great thing was that there was a button at the bottom and the top of the stairs that you had to push to find out whether or not it was clear to either go up or down. If there was somebody coming up or down, the lamp would be red, but if the coast was clear, then the lamp would turn green. Very practical!

From there, we decided to go visit the nearest church, the Lisbon Cathedral. When we arrived there, we were lucky enough to be able to hear some people rehearsing a song. The acoustic was amazing! Mind you, I had never heard anyone sing in a church like this (only in normal churches), so I had no clue how wonderful it was. I managed to take a short video clip of it. Here goes:


Here are some photos of the church:

After that we went to have lunch in a nearby restaurant as we were so hungry. We'll continue the tour in another post because I have a lot more photos from the next place we visited that I'm going to share.

Lisbon Trip #1

We went to Lisbon on our winter holiday. It was our first time in Portugal. We stayed at Neya Lisboa because the price was right, breakfast was included in the price, and there's free wifi in the rooms. Besides, it has a decent rank at Tripadvisor and there is a spa in the hotel as well as a Shiatsu massage pillow in each room (though at that time we had no idea what it would feel like to use it).

Here are some photos of the breakfast room, which was used as a restaurant, as well. We had dinner there on the first night because we arrived late and we didn't want to go anywhere else. The food was great, though the price of the food was a bit more pricy. For breakfast, though, we realized it was nicer to go there earlier (at 7 instead of 8 am for example) because then it would be empty he he...

I did consider ordering taxi beforehand (like what we did in Budapest), but people in Tripadvisor suggested hailing a taxi from the airport instead of booking online. Someone even said that going to the departure area to hail a taxi from there would be cheaper. Well, that person was right. It cost us €18 to go to the hotel, but it only cost €13 to go to the airport from the hotel. Both drivers were driving at such a high speed. It felt nice, though, that the hotel wasn't located too far from the airport. Usually the journey from the airport to the hotel took longer than 11-13 minutes.

We flew with TAP Portugal from Helsinki and Finnair from Rovaniemi to Helsinki. On the way to Lisbon, we only had a little over one hour to change the plane, so we were relieved to know that they could transfer our luggage straight to Lisbon from Rovaniemi, so we didn't have to check-in our luggage again in Helsinki airport. I was a bit worried that the luggage wouldn't be transferred in time to the TAP plane, but thankfully our luggage was safe and sound when we arrived at Lisbon airport.

Anyway, on our first full day in Lisbon, we went out to buy the Viva Viagem ticket from the ticket machine at the closest metro station. The card cost €6 and it provided unlimited use on many different kinds of transportation (bus, metro, tram, etc.) for 24 hours. The card was reloadable, so we had to keep it with us. Funny thing was that it was the very first time I had ever used a machine like that. In the past whenever we had to use metro, we bought the tickets from a stall or a ticket seller. So you know what I did? I tried pushing the money inside the machine first, but of course it wouldn't swallow my money because I had to choose first what kind of card I wanted to buy LOLLLLL!!!!

I made a mistake the first time around by choosing to buy 2 reloads at a time (so I paid €0,50 for the card and €12 for the reload instead of €6). I was scared that I was losing money that way, but no...the amount was still available to use the next day after the first reload expired 24 hours later. Phew!

Here's a photo of the metro station near our hotel. Some of the stations have nice decorations.

Our first task that day (other than browsing around and visiting some places) was to find the train station, as we were planning to visit Sintra (the place where we got to visit the colourful palace) by train. Here's the lovely Rossio train station and the big square nearby).

I find this image hilarious. Don't you think that the statue looks pissed of because of the birds? HA HA HA HA...

One of the things I love about Lisbon is that there are so many lovely buildings and colourful ones everywhere. Here are some examples:

Okay, I'll end this here before it gets too long. I'll write more later. Expect many more photos and some videos! :-D

P.S. Oh yes, the Shiatsu massage pillow was very helpful to help reduce the ache from walking around the Lisbon (the city of 7 hills). I could use it on my calves, the soles of my feet, back, and even shoulder. I LOVE it!!!!