Porto to Matosinhos by train 12km
Walk Matosinhos to Povoa de Varzim 25km + 2km diversion +2km tourist route at Villa Conda
Total distance walking 29kms
Climb 20m
Total climb 20m

This turned out to be a long, tough day. Not the distance, although we like to keep our days 20km or less. Not the terrain, it was dead flat. Not the surface, 75% on boardwalk and the rest on pavement or cobble stone. It was the wind. All day we were walking into a 30km/hr wind gusting to 57. This was really energy sapping although it did keep us nice and cool as otherwise it was a 27° day.

We were pretty excited to get walking today. Lisbon and Porto are busy, beautiful, vibrant cities and I loved them both but we are here to walk and we were ready to get away from all the people and follow the peaceful, quiet Camino. We had an early breakfast and by the time we had got the train ride over with it was 8.45am when we started walking from Matosinhos and we didn’t reach our hotel in Povoa de Varzim until 5.10pm.

We also think it was more than a 25km day today. Near Vila Cha early this afternoon there was a large sign saying the boardwalk we were on was closed and there were some temporary signs directing us inland. We were walking with a young Spanish guy and two American women. The diversion took us on suburban streets but then onto a dirt road. The others, glued to the GPS on their phones didn’t like the look of the track and decided to go further inland to find a road. We decided to believe the temporary signs and carried on along the track. There were lots of footprints in the sandy earth so we were pretty confident. It was a delightful walk under trees and out of the wind. Eventually it rejoined the boardwalk and were glad we had not followed the others. This added at least 2km to the beach route.

The other “extra” was at Villa Conda where there was the option of going through the city or the “tourist” route around the coast. Without knowing it we went the latter, where it was windiest and added another 2km. For all that we had a wonderful day, So many interesting things to see. Among them; a lighthouse, an oil refinery, sea weed harvesting, a chapel, an obelisk monument, two working fishing villages, sculptures, art works, Roman Fish pits for salting fish, surf schools, life guards, one person actually swimming, wind surfers, a replica Portuguese caravel, (gosh they were small), azulejos (painted tiles), a huge convent and a castle.

We walked most of the time on boardwalks. The path follows the coast and between the sea and the buildings along the road there is about a 100 metre strip of nature reserve, which is dunes. The path goes through the dunes but is on a timber boardwalk raised about a metre above the sand. This is very easy to walk on. Vastly better than walking on dry sand where you slip and slide, and cobble stones, concrete or pavement which are hard on your feet after a few hours. The timber on the boardwalks is softer then cobble stone and the structure was very slightly springy so was easy on the feet and legs.

Our hotel is in an oldish building but the decor and fittings are very slick and modern. Dinner is included in the tarrif and we were given a voucher to a very modern restaurant about 30 metres away. The meal was a choice of salad or vegetable soup, halibut fish or meat with salad and fries, fruit salad or trifle with cream, red or white wine, coffee. An excellent meal but we were so tired it was a struggle to eat and we thought the wine was going to knock us out.

We must be tired as we had a laugh when we came back to our room after dinner. We have balcony and there are two layers of sliding doors with about a hundred mm gap between them. We thought this must be for acoustic reasons, like double glazing. When we came to pull the curtains there was only a thin net type curtain. We thought this must be all there is, but it didn’t matter because it was dark outside. Later I was playing around with a bank of buttons beside the bed when an aluminium roller shutter came down between the two sliding doors giving us total blackout.

We are tired but happy this evening. One of the nice things about today was that there were dozens of other pilgrims along the way. We didn’t get to make any new friends but said high and a brief chat with a few. It is nice to feel part of a community, all with one purpose, to get to Santiago de Compostela.

Two typical tourists today.

No real plan for the day, just to go out and see some of what Porto is offering.  We left a bit later to miss the rush hour on the Metro. The Station we use to get to the historic centre is the Sao Bento station which is also the main suburban train station for Porto.  Sao Bento Station was built at the beginning of the 20th century and is remarkable for its large panels of Azulelejo tiles – about 20,000 of them. The blue and white murals represent moments in the history of Portugal, and the multi-coloured panels depict rural scenes from the various regions. Azulelejo is a form of Portuguese and Spanish painted tin-glazed ceramic tile work used on the exterior and interior of all types of buildings. The Moors brought tile making to Spain and Portugal and after they left that tradition was retained and developed over many centuries.

Next stop was the McDonalds in Praca de Liberdade, considered to be the most beautiful Maccas in the world – the building that is, not the food. Prior to 1995, when McDonalds  moved in, it was the famous Imperial Cafe. The main features including crystal chandeliers and a huge stained glass window behind the counter have been retained. It was quite busy but most people seemed to be like us. Wandering in to have a look and departing without ordering anything.

From McDonalds we went up to the Cathedral and got the first stamp in our Pilgrim Passports, our Credencials. We are supposed to get two stamps per day on our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Today we also got a stamp at our hotel. From the Cathedral we walked over the top deck of the Ponte de Luis 1 and down into Vila Nova de Gaia, the city on the opposite side of the Douro River to Porto. On the river edge this is very much a tourist hot spot and where elsewhere you pay 0.70 for a coffee, here we paid 2 Euro.

We went up a side street to see a street art installation called Half Rabbit. It is on the corner of a building, two stories high and made of recycled junk material. Over the road was a port cellar advertising cellar tours and port tasting for 10 € per person. We haven’t had any port in Portugal yet, so decided to have a look. From Marco we had an explanation of grape growing, Port making, the types of Port, the ageing, and finished off with a tasting of two ports, a white and a tawny. This took nearly an hour and was the highlight of the day. We were the only two on this tour so it was a very personal experience. This company was Quinta do Bom Dia, a small family business that has been producing port for five generations. They own 25 hectares of land far inland up the Douro River Valley.

Just along from the cellar was The Fantastic  World of Sardines. A large shop selling tinned sardines and also tinned octopus, muscles, cod and shrimp. This was all a bit mind boggling, thousands upon thousands of tins of sardines with all sorts of flavours. They had dozens of designs on the tins and tins for every year, so you can get a tin with the year of your birth on it. I like sardines, a good source of omega 3, but didn’t buy any here. These were more like souvenir sardines.

Next to the sardines was another amazing place, Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau.  A large two story high space with the walls lined with shelves full of old volumes, but definitely not a library. There was an elevated platform with a guy playing the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’ on an organ.  Made me wish I was 64. They were selling port wine by the glass with Pastel de Bacalhau. This is a cod fish cake filled with cheese. We had just had two glasses of port each so just bought some of the cod fish cake. There was a mezzanine floor where you could sit down and eat your cake, drink your port, listen to the organ and just soak up the wonderful atmosphere. It was pretty busy so we decided to go outside and sit in the sunshine beside the river.

Vila Nova de Gaia is on the south bank of the mouth of the Douro River. Ideal grape growing country is located far up the Douro River valley. Port wine was sent down the river on boats to Vila Nova de Gaia where the cellars of famous port wines were located. From here port was shipped around the world.

We walked back over the Ponte de Luis 1 lower deck and up through the city to get the train back to the hotel. A fun day for one that started off with no real plan.

Today we walked the first leg of our Camino Portuguese. “Unofficially” anyway.

The traditional Camino started at the Porto Cathedral and followed a 12 km inland route to Matosinhos. In the middle ages Porto was a town and most of this walk was through countryside. Porto is now a city of 1.5 million and the walk is 100% on pavement through busy, noisy commercial, residential and business districts with very little way finding and is not very pleasant. Purists still walk this route but some take the Metro from Porto to Matosinhos and start walking from there. This is what our tour company Caminoways do.  We wanted to walk the full Camino from the Cathedral in Porto to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, not get the train for the first 12km. Caminoways had us taking the train and then walking 25km from Matosinhos to Povoa Varzim on the first day. It is too much for us these days to walk the 12km plus the 25km in one day. We asked Caminoways to amend our itinerary but they wouldn’t.

So we decided to do our own cunning plan. A popular alternative these days is to walk Porto to Matosinhos alongside the Douro River and then along the coast. This is what we did today. We have used one of our days in Porto to walk to Matosinhos and then got the train back to Porto. On Wednesday, the “official” start of our Camino we will train to Matosinhos and walk from there.

There is a park we walk through on the way to the Metro and this morning we noticed there are huge blue ants in the park, and over the road on a building and 100 metres down the road on another building. They are about a metre long and made of fabric and metal and are quite lovely. Of course we had to sing the ants go marching song on our way to the Metro. At the cathedral we had our photo taken and set off down to the river. What a different place it was. Yesterday it was heaving with people, all hustle and bustle and noise in the hot sun on a Sunday afternoon. This Monday morning it was almost empty, quiet and cool. And it was misty. We knew Porto could be foggy. Westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean bring in cool moist air which cause condensation and precipitation. So it can be cool and foggy on the coast and hot and sunny further inland.  This was one of those foggy days.

The best part of today was walking along the Douro River to where it flows into the ocean. The path is right alongside the river and sometimes cantilevered out over it. This is  an older part of Porto with interesting old houses, chapels, fishing villages, a bird observation area and the tram line runs down to the ocean. You also get to walk under the imposing Ponte da Arrabida. A very high concrete arch bridge over the river. At the mouth of the river there are two lighthouses, both at the end of long piers. From the land you could hardly make them out in the fog and you had to walk right out to them to get a good look.

As you walk along beside the ocean the character changes. The path becomes a wide promenade and the road becomes multi lane. For about 5 kms there are large modern characterless apartments facing out to sea. There are lots of parks, trees, sandy beaches (each with a lone life guard but not a soul on the beach or in the water), sports facilities for beach football and volley ball, surf schools, an aquarium, a castle, a huge sculpture over a roundabout representing a fish net,  memorials to seafaring tragedies and lots more. This is the beach settlement and resort for Porto.

Matosinhos looks older and has a port on the river. There was a large cruise ship at the dock and there are container wharves, an oil tank farm and all the ugly industrial stuff that goes with a working port. From here we got the Metro back to the hotel and lunch in the nearby food hall again.  It was foggy until early afternoon but then cleared and it warmed up a lot.

Tomorrow we will be tourists in Porto and then on Wednesday we will be peregrinos again and train out to Matosinhos and start the real walking.

A successful day in the end. Neither of us slept well last night. I was brassed off about the laptop and Barbara is not sleeping well at the moment. I think the jet lag still has a sting in its tail. Fortunately we got the laptop issue resolved quickly and then we were able to get the Metro into the cathedral. Our aim was to get our Credencials, Pilgrim Passports, so we could start collecting stamps in them when we start walking.

At this hotel and all hotels to come except for the last one, breakfast is included. This was pretty much standard continental fare for Spain and Portugal. Juice, coffee, muesli, yoghurt, some bread, cheese and ham, croissants, muffins and pastal de nadas.  And some fresh fruit, apples and kiwi fruit. Suits us.

Coming up out of the subway into the sunlight in Porto was a bit of a shock. It was a glorious sunny Sunday and the streets, plazas, bars, cafes were teeming with people. We were not exactly sure where to go to get our Credencials but joined a long line of people waiting to go in and see the cathedral. Two lots of people saw our Camino patches on our back packs and asked us where to get their Credencials. As if we knew. On our way out of the cathedral we were able to tell them yes, they were in the right queue.

We are going to start our walk from the cathedral and go via the Douro River and out to the coast. Today we checked out the first part down to the river as we had been told it is not well sign posted. It turned out if you follow your nose you can*t go wrong. There were lots of boats on the river doing river trips so we hung around watching them and just generally people watching. We then crossed over the river on the Dom Luis 1 Bridge. This is a double deck metal arch bridge spanning the Rio Douro between the cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. It was constructed in 1886 and at that time had the longest span in the world for a bridge of that type. The bridge was designed and the construction administered by a disciple of Gustave Eiffel of the Eiffel Tower, Paris. The lower deck is for vehicles and pedestrians and the upper deck is for public transport and pedestrians. We walked over the lower deck.

On the Gaia side we caught the Metro back over the high level deck and made our way back to the hotel. We had a late lunch at the same food hall we went to last night, the Mercado Bom Sucesso. It was also very busy. I spent the rest of the day getting to grips with the new laptop. My old Dell was 12 years old and this one has the latest version of Windows etc, so everything is just a bit different and there are a lot of new things to learn and set up.

Yeah we are back in business.

About 100 metres from our hotel is a large modern food hall and an upmarket shopping centre. The food hall was where we went for a meal last night ¬ see photos in the last post. The shopping mall had a small IT shop selling a lot of computer stuff. I went there last night about 9pm (they are open 10am to 10pm seven days a week) and spoke to a guy about  getting a new charger for my Dell laptop. No go. After deciding over night that I would buy a new laptop I went back to the shop (Chip 7) and spoke with a very helpful guy.

I now have a Lenova laptop with Windows 11 Pro for 609.99 Euro, 499.99 for the laptop and 110.00 for the Windows. 23% of this was taxes. It is a slightly different set up so I am floundering around a bit and stuff keeps coming up in Portuguese and I have to translate back to English. However I am just grateful to be back online reasonably easily and in short time.

So back to what I was going to blog yesterday.

An early start compared to the day before. Checked out of the hotel by 7.45. Today is a transfer day from Lisbon to Porto. Our intercity trains leaves from Oriente Station , 5 stops away on the Metro. We wanted to use our Lisboa Card, the 72 hours of which ended at 8.30 so we had to complete our trip by 8.30am. On a week day this would be no problem but this is Saturday and we were not sure of the frequency of the trains. As it happened it was not a problem. Out of the Metro system with time to spare.

Oriente is a major transport hub for Lisbon with the Metro, suburban, intercity and international (ie Spain) trains, and local, intercity and international buses. As well as a gazillion taxis, all of them black with a pale torquoise roof. This transport complex has mutiple levels, dozens of cafes and bars, a police station and the biggest supermarket I have ever been in. It was designed by Salvatore Calatrava, one of the super hero modern  architect/engineers and was completed in 1998. It is very organic with huge concrete arches and buttresses and the platforms are covered in a lattice structure of glass and metal a bit like walking under a canopy of ferns.

Our train left at 11.39 and thankfully, after our problems last year, there were no strikes this year. We arrived in Porto half an hour behind schedule at 3.30pm. We needed a couple of Andante train/bus cards and tried the ticket machines. You can switch these to English but we could not figure how to do this and didn´t have a hope of following all the instructions and options in Portuguese so went and saw a real person at a ticket desk  and she had us fixed up in about 2 minutes. Porto Caminha railway station has woeful signage  andIT  took us a long time walking around in circles before figuring out the Metro train is in a separate building about 100 metres from the intercity train. But then maybe we are just not very bright. Once we sorted this out it was a short Metro ride and a 10 minute walk to our hotel. The Hotel Duoro is smaller than the Ramada and more boutiquey and once again away from the historic centre but is close to a large food court, shopping mall and small supermarket. It is nice and quiet and we will be comfortable here for four nights. The photos for this post are in the preceeding one.

We have arrived in Porto and found our hotel.

Last night the charger to my laptop died, so I am doing this on its remaining battery life. When the charger died it blew the main fuse to our hotel room and we didn’t know what had happened for a while. The concierge had to come and reset the mcb from their main board.

There is no hope of getting a new charger here. It is 2012 and would have to be ordered from Dell – ie 2 weeks. Generic ones don’t work.

Today (Sunday) I will go and try and buy a new laptop. So until I do, no more blogs. The photos are from our travels yesterday.

Ciao, hope to be back in business soon.

A much easier day today. Barbara slept in until 7.30 which is pretty much unheard of for her. We had a very lazy start and did not leave the hotel till 10am, getting the metro into the city centre. Lisbon has many types of public transport: the underground metro, the surface light rail, the surface suburban trains, buses, trams, elevators and funiculars. We have used the metro and trains, seen many trams and buses so thought we would check out a funicular and elevator.

Lisbon has three funiculars, Elevador do Gloria, Elevador do Lavra and Elevador do Bica. They are small trams hauled up and down steep streets by cables. They have been in operation since the 1880s. Originally they ran on a water counterweight system, then run by steam and now electricity. They were painted brown but since the 1930s have been yellow – but often covered in graffiti. The nearest one was Gloria so we made our way to the bottom of its hill. We found the stop and waited for Gloria to come down. A queue of about 20 formed behind us but no Gloria arrived. After about 15 minutes a young guy came up and spoke to someone he knew in the queue in a language we did not understand. Immediately everyone dispersed so we guessed Gloria was having a day off today.

A bit disappointed we made our way down the Rua Augusta pedestrian street then up a hill to the Lisbon Cathedral. Officially the Cathedral of St Mary Major, but usually just called Sé (Sé de Lisboa). Construction started in 1147 when the Moors were defeated and expelled. The cathedral is on the site of an earlier mosque. It is mainly in Romanesque style but has been altered, repaired and added to in different styles. Being Romanesque it has round arches, a heavy barrel vault and massive walls with only a few small windows. It has none of the vaulted roofs and large stained glass windows of later Gothic cathedrals. It was free to enter the church but a fee to enter the museum and cloister.

We have seen many cathedrals so decided to go further up the hill to the Miraduoro de Santa Luzia. Lisbon is built on seven hills (like Rome) and there are many observation points with spectacular panoramic views of the city and out over the Tagus River. This one is popular at sunset but we were there at midday. They are lively places with gardens, music, bars and cafes and crowds of we tourists. We took some photos and climbed to the top of the hill and the Castelo de S Jorge. This is an 11^th century Moorish hill top castle and royal residence. Barbara says it is a “real” castle, ie it has walls, castellations, arrowslits, ancient canons, a citadel, towers, courtyards, drawbridges etc, unlike the Castle of the Moors in Sintra which she says is only a wall.

The castle was damaged during sieges and many earthquakes and it is only in the 1940s and 1990s that it has been repaired and rebuilt. What you see today looks magnificent but it is recent construction, a replica really, even if a very accurate one. The location on the hill has some of the best views out over Lisbon. It has the usual museum, gift shop, café etc but also a camera obscura. This is the natural phenomenon where the rays of light passing through a small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) projection of the view outside.

From the castle we went back down hill stopping for a bite to eat at Potato Project, a very popular place that serves fries with different sauces and toppings. We had guacamole which had fries, tomato salsa, black beans, cheddar and guacamole. Scrumdiddlyumtious. We then went back up the Rua Augusta to find the Elevador de Santa Justa. This is a lift built in 1904 that is used to help Lisbon residents move from a lower to a higher neighbourhood without having to climb steep cobbled streets. It is built of cast iron and has filigree details and is now a popular tourist attraction. When we arrived there was along queue and a sign saying the top viewing platform was temporarily closed. So a second fail for the day. Lisbon had a few of these elevators and we saw a new modern one at the other end of the city as part of the route up to the castle.

Back at the hotel by 3pm and a lazy end to the day. A good day, not too taxing, the castle was the highlight and we will come back to ride a funicular and an elevador.

We are feeling refreshed this morning after a good night’s sleep. I think we are getting on top of the jet lag. Looking back at yesterday the three things I liked the best were:

The Castle of the Moors. There was just a raw, brutal honesty to this place, nothing superfluous or frivolous. The Pena Palace was one cultured and artistic powerful man’s fantasy at his summer palace and the Quinta Regaleira was another wealthy man’s fantasy about Templar and Freemason rituals. The castle was built from materials at hand on the site, was as efficient and economic as possible and at the end of the day its success or failure was a question of life or death.

The Initiatory Well, Quinta da Regaleira. This was just such a wonderful, crazy thing to do. Even without the hidden meaning of the number of steps and columns etc it is just so eccentric.

The Kitchen at The Pena Palace. When walking through historic palaces, homesteads, colonial cottages etc, I get a bit over going through grand halls, dining rooms, bedrooms, nurseries and the rest, but I always find the kitchens fascinating and the one at the Pena Palace was a beauty.

If you are in Lisbon then a trip to Sintra is a must. Places are quite spread out so it is a full on day to get to even three things as we did. If you want to see more then multiple trips are required or else go out and stay at Sintra for a day or two.

There are dozens of companies in Lisbon who run guided tours to Sintra. We wanted to visit three places but most of the tour companies only visit two as they almost all include going to Cascais, an historic fishing village now a swanky beach resort and Cabo da Roca which is continental Europe’s most western point. The most western point of a European country is Bjargtangar in Iceland.

The Pena Palace

The Castle of the Moors

Quinta Regaleira

And the rest.

I am writing this feeling utterly exhausted so please forgive all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. My proof reader and censor, Barbara, has gone to sleep so I am on my own. Left the hotel at 7.40 this morning and got back at 5.40 this evening, 10 hours and we were on the go almost every minute.

Today we did a day trip out of Lisbon to Sintra. Sintra is a resort town in the foothills of Portugal’s Sintra Mountains about 30km from Lisbon. A UNESCO World Heritage/Culture/ Landscape site it has long been a favourite of royalty.  It has a plethora of palaces and their gardens, aristocratic estates, a castle, parks, stately homes, woodlands and fountains, churches, chapels, convents, monasteries and hermitages. And now it is a huge tourist destination.

We had decided to visit just three sites and had pre-purchased entry tickets on line. These were: the Pena Palace and Park, the Moorish Castle and the Quinta da Regaleira. At the Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira you had to chose an entry time, eg 10.00, 10.30, 11.00 etc and the numbers entering at each time slot are capped. They are very strict about entry times. If you have a 10.00 slot and arrive at 10.35 then tough luck you miss out no matter what the reason. We had 10.00 booked at the Pena Palace and 2.30 at the Quinta de Regaleira.

We left the hotel at 7.40 and took the Metro to Oriente train station, the largest in Lisbon, where most suburban and cross-country trains leave from. From there a 50 minute ride to Sintra in a suburban train which was also covered by our Lisboa Card. From Sintra station you can walk up to the Pena Palace or take a bus. The walk is only about 1.5km, is very steep and windy but does go through beautiful woodland. The few people who walk take about 50 minutes and arrive, hot, sweaty and exhausted. Most take the bus although it has a bad rap. Scotturb have a monopoly on the service, charge high prices, always run late and at peak times do not provide enough buses. Not helping is the authorities pleading with people not to take their cars to Sintra attractions as there is little parking on the steep hill sides. We initially thought we might walk up but when we got off the train there was a bus right there waiting for us. It was nearly 9 am and new it would be tight to make it to our 10.00 time slot. So we got the bus, €4.55 each. It is 1.5km to walk up but the bus needs 10km to slowly wind up a narrow steep one-way road with innumerable switch backs and very tight corners. The bus took half an hour in a snail pace procession of buses, other cars and tuk tuks crawling their way up the hill. Both Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle are located on the top of the highest hills in the area.

The Pena Paláce ( Palacio da Pena, Pena means pity or mercy) started as a small chapel in the middle ages and by about 1500 had developed into a monastery. In the eighteenth century the monastery was damaged by lightning and was reduced to ruin by the 1755 earthquake. In 1838, as king consort, Ferdinand II, bought the monastery, surrounding land and estates and set out to transform what was left of the monastery into a summer palace for the royal family. The reconstruction was complete by 1847 and is an exuberant fairytale romantic style with vividly painted terraces, ornamental battlements, statues of mythical creatures, Moorish, Manueline and German Romantic influences. We made our time slot and had a great time exploring all the rooms, battlements, towers etc. It is always packed with visitors and you have to follow a defined one-way route through the building. You quickly become sensually saturated and overwhelmed with all the different colours, materials and designs. It was a relief to go outside and walk in the extensive gardens. This is also romantic with winding paths, pavilions, stone seats and plants from all over the world.

From the Pena Palace it is a short walk to the Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros, Castle of the Moors), a hill top medieval castle built in the 8^th and 9^th centuries by the Moors who occupied most of Portugal and Spain. The castle has a 450 metre perimeter sits on top of a mountainous cliff and meanders over the steep granite terrain. The castle walls were badly damaged in the 1755 earthquake and Ferdinand II eventually bought the castle and lands when he bought the ruined monastery for the future Pena Palace. He repaired and embellished much of the castle walls and it quickly became a tourist attraction. The location is magnificent with views far out over the land and to the coast. Because the mountain is so steep you feel you are right on top of the Sintra village below.

From the castle we walked down to the historic centre of Sintra. This was the path we may have walked up and boy was it steep, with hundreds of steps and cobbled all the way. This was part of an ancient pilgrimage route to the old monastery. In the village we stopped for lunch at a tiny café and had Bacalhau á Bràs  a Portuguese dish made from shreds of salted cod, onions and thinly chopped fried potatoes, all bound with eggs, garnished with black olives and sprinkled with fresh flat-leaf parsley. And very nice it was too.

After lunch we went to the Quinta da Regaleira, the main building of which is the Regaleira Palace, sometimes called the Palácio do Montiero dos Milhões, the nickname of the owner Antonio Augusto de Carvalho Montiero. The palace and surrounding gardens were constructed between 1904 and 1910 and are based on mixed designs of Romanesque, Renaissance, Gothic and Manueline architecture. The lush gardens have lakes, caves, towers, and a beautiful chapel of the Holy Trinity. By far the most fascinating structure is the Initiatory Well.

The well is an underground gallery with a spiral staircase supported by sculpted columns which leads down to the bottom of the well. The staircase has nine levels separated by flights on 15 steps, invoking references to Dante’s Divine Comedy and the 9 circles of hell, paradise or purgatory. Montiero was very much into alchemical meanings such as those found in Freemasonry, the Templars and Rosicrucians. The well is said to be initiatory as it is said to have been used in initiation rites in Freemasonry. The symbolism of the site is related to the belief that the earth is the maternal womb from which life comes, but also the tomb to which it will return. At the bottom of the well are tunnels carved out of the rock which lead to a lake and waterfall, another unfinished well and lower areas of the gardens. By now we were wilting with sensory overload and so after a quick look through the palace and gardens we made our way back to the train station and our train back to Lisbon. Sintra station is a little gem with beautiful tiles, and historic Sintra is beautiful with steep narrow little streets and alleys and some very fine buildings including a very highly decorated building for the local City Council.

So it was a full on day and we need a quiet rest day tomorrow to recover. In Sintra it was at first quite misty up on the mountains but the sun eventually came out and it warmed up to about 22 degrees. Up on the tops, on the north side of the palace and castle walls it was breezy and cold, but on the south side it was calm and warm. I suspect there is always some breeze up there.

I have now run out of steam so the photos will have to wait until tomorrow.  Don’t forget to come back and have  a look, there are some amazing ones!

Day one of exploring Lisbon.

We have discoverd there is a little shopping mall just around the corner at the back of our hotel. It not at all touristy and is used mainly by people living in the many surrounding apartments. There is a very good supermarket and a nice little cafe that sells very good coffee. I think we will pass through there every day. One euro forty for two black cafes.

From our hotel we took the red line underground metro and transferred to the green line underground metro to get down to the riverbank (Tagus River). From there we came back up to fresh air and took the surface train along the river to Belém where there are several notable historic sites to visit.

First up Belém Tower (Portuguese: Torre de Belém – literally Bethlehem Tower) built in the 16^th century as a fortification to protect Lisbon from raiders coming in on the Tagus River. Officially it is the Tower of St Vincent. Originally it was on an island near the riverbank but the great earthquake of 1755 raised the river bed and altered the course of the river so now the island has merged with the land. It also served as a ceremonial gateway for sailors leaving and returning on the great voyages of discovery. It is built in the Portuguese Manueline style and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Manueline style is Late Gothic with a flamboyant use of decorative elements using elements like rope, chains, anchors, shells, seaweed, pearls, oak leaves, acorns, poppy capsules, thistles, corncobs etc, and celebrated Portugal’s status as a great maritime power.

Further along the Tagus River is the Monument to the Discoveries (Padrāo dos Descobrimentos). The original monument was built for the Portuguese World Fair in 1940 but the perishable materials were replaced by the present stone and concrete replica in 1960. The monument is a tribute to King Henry the Navigator and as well as he there are 32 statues of great men (there is only one woman – the queen) of the age of discovery including Vasco de Gama (discoverer of the sea route to India), Ferdinand Magellan (first to circumnavigate the globe) and Pedro Alvares Cabral (discoverer of Brazil). We took the lift and stairs inside the monument for panoramic views up and down the river. In the forecourt is a 50 metre diameter compass rose and a part map of the world. Part of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific is missing.

From there we went over the road to the Jerónimos Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónomos), a former monastery of the Order of St Jerome. It is also in the Portuguese Manueline style, built in the sixteenth century and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It took a hundred years to build and was financed with a 5% tax on commerce with Africa and the Orient. King Manuel 1 selected the order of the monks and their role was to pray for his eternal soul and to provide spiritual assistance to the sailors who set off to discover new lands all around the world. This they did for 4 centuries until 1833 when the order was dissolved and the monastery was abandoned. We were keen to go into the monastery and its cloister but there was an enormous line with a wait time of 2 hours to enter. We have seen many monasteries and cloisters in Spain and will see more when we start our Camino so decided not to get baked standing out in the hot sun.

Next stop was the Pastéis de Belém bakery where they sell the original Pasta de Nata, a Portuguese egg custard tart pastry with crispy pastry crust and rich custard filling dusted with cinnamon. The following is the history of the tart from this bakery:

At the beginning of the 19th century, in Belém, next to the Jerónimos Monastery, there was a sugar cane refinery associated with a small place of varied commerce. As a consequence of the Liberal Revolution that occurred in 1820, all the convents and monasteries in Portugal were closed in 1834, expelling the clergy and workers.

In an attempt to survive, someone from the Monastery puts some sweet pastries on sale in that shop, quickly named “Pastéis de Belém”.

At the time, the Belém area was far from the city of Lisbon and the route was provided by steamboats. However, the imposing Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower attracted visitors who soon became accustomed to tasting the delicious pastries that originated in the Monastery.

In 1837, the production of “Pastéis de Belém” began in facilities attached to the refinery, according to the ancient “secret recipe” that originated in the Monastery. It was passed down and known exclusively by the master pastry chefs who made them by hand in the “Oficina do Segredo”. This recipe has remained the same to this day.

In fact, the only true “Pastéis de Belém” factory manages, through a careful selection of ingredients, to provide today the taste of ancient Portuguese sweets.

Only this bakery can call the tarts Pastéis de Belém, all other bakeries call them Pasta de Nata. We bought some, freshly baked and warm, and ate them in a nearby park. Very yummy. We have bought them from two places back home in Wellington but they were not nearly as yummy as these.

Then what was probably the highlight of the day. We came across the National Coach Museum (Meseu Nacional dos Coches).  This is one of the finest collections of historical coaches in the world. The original museum was created in 1905 by Queen Amelia to house an extensive collection of carriages belonging to the Portuguese royal family and nobility. The collection gives a full picture of the development of carriages from the late 16th through the 19th centuries, with carriages made in Italy, Portugal, France, Spain, Austria and England. The oldest carriage was from 1619. At the museum we also have a very nice lunch of lentil soup and toasta de queso y jamon.

From the elaborate baroque decoration of gilded carriages we caught a much more banal train to the Praço do Comércio, a huge square facing the river. The original buildings of this square were destroyed in the 1755 earthquake and subsequent tsunami and fire. After the earthquake the square was completely remodelled and rebuilt and housed all the government bureaux regulating customs and port activity. There is a huge triumphal central arch called the Arco da Rua Augusta which has a clock and is crowned with statues of Glory, Ingenuity and Valour. We climbed the tiny stone spiral stair to the top for views out over the square and river and inland up the Rua Augusta. From the square we walked Rua Augusta, Lisbon’s main pedestrian street that links Praço do Comércio with another important square, Rossio Square. It is a lively street full of cafes, music, performers, shops and of course the usual beggars and drug pushers.

From Rossio Square we went underground again to get back to the hotel. It was pretty warm today, 28 degrees, no cloud and no wind. We are still suffering from jet lag and were pretty zonked by the end of the day. I am getting to really like Lisbon and there is so much more to explore.