Sintra

This drive was stressful for both Julie and I. It turns out that we probably should have stayed in Lisbon instead of Sintra to visit this town. We later re-read our European camping book, and they strongly suggest against driving in Sintra. They have plenty of crowded, narrow streets. Parking is also supposed to be rough, but we lucked out. Sintra is famous for its palaces and has been the home of Portuguese royalty. Had we had more time and money, we would have stopped by all of the sights. However, 2 of them were closed till the next day and the other was a bit of a drive out of town. The main palace that’s located just outside the town centre didn’t impress us much. Which is why we decided to skip the other attractions, we did however visit the toy museum. I was completely disappointed to learn that I wouldn’t be allowed to play with any of the 20,000 + toys. For the most part, it was mildly interesting but seeing the castle or inside the palace might have been more rewarding. There were a few toys I found funny, some I remember from when I was a kid (which is scary to see in a museum!) and some we took pictures of for other people when we saw a toy that reminded us of them. We took another stroll through the tiny old centre to search for a pay phone to call home. It was at the second phone that Julie started to get upset, as it seemed that her card wasn’t working again. I watched her punch in the # only to see that she thought she was still in Spain, not Portugal. Slight oversight, but we managed to call home. We spotted a potential place to park below our original one (1st was pay, 2nd one wasn’t) and on our way there we passed a sign for Pizza Hut. Julie being in no mood to cook and me loving pizza, we stopped for dinner. We managed to order the right pizza this time and weren’t all that impressed with it, but we both feel it was the place, not the pizza type. I also ordered a beer called Superbock which is advertised over here, pretty much everywhere. It wasn’t bad, reminded me of Heineken. Afterwards we finished the complicated drive to the parking spot and found another van free camping. This always makes the spot better. The next morning I convinced Julie to visit “Hells Mouth”, I also suggested seeing a palace, the Moorish castle (it was closed) and the most western point of the continental Europe. Hells Mouth wasn’t as far away as some of the other sites I suggested and was free. Due to the time of year, it wasn’t the raging inferno I had expected but it was nevertheless nice.