Sintra

I learned an interesting fact about Sintra (a small town about 30 min from Lisbon by train)--it is a microclimate, meaning that if it is sunny and beautiful in Lisbon it may be raining and miserable in Sintra. Such was the case when I arrived in Sintra at 9am with reservations for a bike rental. It was pouring rain and my (in)famous sense of direction was reliable as ever so I quickly got lost and just went to a café for coffee. That was delightful--I got to sit by a roaring fire and the cashier gave me directions that involved a shortcut through a beautiful park that was built onto a steep hillside. Of course, everything in Sintra is built on a steep hillside. A lot of my directions involved turning "up" instead of R or L (it felt like being home).
I finally found the bike shop at about the point that I realized there was no way I was biking in this weather. But I am glad that I stopped by because the owner was half American, as it turned out, and she was able to recommend a great walking/hiking route through Sintra to see the local Moorish castle. The rain came and went but I didn't mind because the result was lots of fog/mist that lent an almost magical air to my explorations of Sintra. I climbed a ridiculously tall hill to see the castle (which I later learned is actually the tallest hill in southern Portugal and the castle was built on top of it so that the Moors could keep an eye on the coast and Lisbon). The castle was one of the coolest castles I have every explored (okay, I have only seen like 3 to be fair). With the wind and fog my view would alternate from not being able to see past three steps in front of me to suddenly catching a glimpse of the beach in one direction and the city in Lisbon in another.

After the castle I found myself at the nearby baths of Santa Eufemia. She is apparently the patron saint of all sorts of nasty illnesses and there were these baths (I assume from a local hot spring) that people would travel for miles to visit and bath in for healing. Her specialty, according to a sign, was in curing scabies. I was pretty grossed out by the idea of bathing in healing waters with a bunch of scabrous strangers but that's the middle ages for you.

At this point I had been wandering for about 3 hours and 6+ miles and was starving and lost. So I heading back down the hill in search of a restaurant recommended by the bike shop owner. On the way I encountered some of the lovely pet dogs of Sintra. One of them was the size of a dinosaur and thought it was funny to growl at me and lightly bite at my coat. He wasn't seriously attacking me, just letting me know that he could, but I was extremely alarmed and couldn't shake him so I ended up climbing someone's garden wall and sitting there until an elderly Portuguese man came by and chased the dog off (he actually just laughed, pet the dog affectionately and sent him back to his home).

I finally found the restaurant and discovered that the bike shop owner was serious about her recommendation--she was there with her husband and invited me to have lunch with them. I once again found Portuguese food to be AMAZING (lots of garlic!) and the wine to be incredibly cheap (like $2 a glass). All in all, Sintra was fantastic and I would go back there in a heart beat (I actually intend to at some point later in this trip. I still have a bike to rent and a nearby monastery to visit).

I was so wiped out by the time I got to my train that I fell asleep with hot tea in my hands (I woke up when it tipped over onto me...sadly this is not the first or even the second time this has happened). Fortunately my stop in Lisbon was the end of the line, so I didn't get lost again. :)

That evening, our hostel had a BBQ and all of the hostels owned by the same company in Lisbon were invited (destination Lisbon, I think the company is called--I highly recommend them). We drank Sangria, ate delicious garlicky Portuguese food, and danced to whatever tunes the Argentinian DJ felt moved to play (eclectic, to say the least). Afterwards, tho I had grand plans to sleep, I was convinced to join the other travelers on a pub crawl through Barrio Alto. Barrio Alto is the party section of town--it reminded me a lot of the French quarter in New Orleans. There are people dancing and drinking in the streets (no open container laws!) and there is music spilling out of clubs every few doors. I had a fabulous time with some very drunk Koreans, a nice German and another American gal. I felt very free dancing like a dork (occasionally to the backstreet boys; Europe is weird) knowing that I literally would never see anyone there ever again. I was also pleased to discover that club-goers in Lisbon are much more polite than in Atlanta--no one awkwardly tries to force you to dance or invades your space if you accidentally make eye contact.

I successfully taxied back to our hostel with the American girl (a post-doc doing neurology research in Paris) and made it to bed by 3:30 after a lengthy conversation with a hostel employee about Portuguese literature while drunkenly eating BBQ leftovers. It was a fabulous night followed by a very rough morning--totally worth it. Tho it has been three days since and my calves still hurt--I cannot tell if it is from hiking in Sintra, dancing in Barrio alto or wandering my way up and down stairs back through Lisbon to find a cab (probably all three).