Day 9 Monday 15th April


 

Last day in Sintra and after yesterday's exhausting up and downhill walking we really will take it easy. Maybe just a stroll into town. Check out the Modern Museum of Art.

So we do just that. Walk past the Sintra Station which is packed with tourists and the Tuc Tuc drivers and guides are hustling for customers. There are long lines of people trying to catch the bus up to Pena Castle. We walk through and stroll to the new town and the Museum. Alas, it's closed on Mondays and I was hoping to use the bathroom there. Yikes! Liz spies a smaller museum-like place next door. A tram museum. And out of nowhere, we are booking tram tickets to the beach for 2pm. It's still only 11 so we go back to the hotel with a few sandwiches. 

So a few hours later we travelled by tram to the beach. It's very loud (I have to put noise-cancelling earbuds in) and so jerky I can't get any decent video footage or pictures. It's like a really dodgy ride but it's fun. It's also really cold as the temperature has dropped since this morning and I wore shorts. 


We get to the small seaside town or village which is very small and a bit knackered. The beach looks great but too cold with the Atlantic breeze putting a real chill in the air. So we catch a bus back to town. The bus ride is crazy. The driver is going so fast down narrow and winding roads we feel that any time now we are going to crash. It makes Liz feel unwell. But we get back to Sintra safely. 

Our apartment has a kitchen so we decided to cook tonight. We go to the big supermarket and grab pasta and sauce and a few rolls. And walk up the hills to our hotel. We lack salt and oil but it all turns out fine and we have a bottle of white wine to wash it down. We could have had two. 

It's a stay at the hotel night so we watch a couple of episodes of Babylon Berlin. Tomorrow's going to be a big day as we hop the train (or two) to Porto.









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