So, I found out a very important life lesson – don’t run in dark caves and definitely don’t do it running backwards!   More on that later…

But first – day 3 and the lack of sleep still hadn’t caught up with me.   In fact, I was up in the wee hours of the morning after about 5 hours sleep.

After another fine breakfast, myself, Keissi and Johanna walked a few blocks to the rail station and caught a train to Sintra.   Sintra is about 40 minutes away and as far as I could tell, was completely tourist driven.

Surrounded by narrow, winding roads up hills there are a handful of different palaces scattered through the city.

The first palace we stopped at was the Palacio da Regaleira.   As we entered the front gate we were met with different footpaths up to the palace.   There was so much to explore – towers, gardens, caves, a chapel and of course the palace.

Now, of course, the only thing I’m going to remember are the caves.   Partly for their vastness and beauty – they are under the water and completely dark and seem to go on forever – but mostly because of this video:

Anyway…

Onto the second palace…

The other palace we visited was the Palacio da Monserrate.   This palace is accentuated by its’ vast gardens with a plethora of different plants, trees and flowers.   The design of the palace itself is Indian inspired and was built in the late 1700s.

Both were a marvel to see because while castles and palaces may be old hat to Europeans, to a Canadian they are something unlike anything I’ve seen.

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There were other palaces to see as well but by then we were tired (and some of us a little sore) so we headed back into Lisbon.

The girls and I parted ways as they went off to McDonalds for a quick nibble before heading out into the night life of a Friday night in Lisbon.   I, on the other hand, was so dead tired that I ended up crashing in bed at 9pm.

Just another day in paradise… 216 days still to go…

Euro Trip 2013, Trip Journal, Lisbon, Portugal
Europe 2013
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