On Wednesday, May 23 we took a day trip to Sintra! It was a short train ride from Lisbon and we arrived pretty early that morning. Our first stop was visiting the National Palace of Sintra. I loved all the beautiful tiles and the decorated ceilings and chandeliers. After walking through we took the 434 bus to the Castelo dos Mouros (the Moorish Castle). The lush nature on the walk to the castle was one of our favorite parts, and walking along the walls gave us some amazing views! You could see Pena Palace from the castle walls which was our last stop in Sintra. After waiting in a long line to enter we walked through the palace and then headed back to Lisbon. If you are visiting Libon Sintra is definetley worth the short trip!
That afternoon we visited the National Tile Museum. The museum has a beautiful collection, but it was pretty out of the way and we had a long walk back to the Alfama district. Once we made it back to a familiar part of the city we stopped for a snack and listened to some live music. To get back to where we were staying we took a tuk tuk ride back to the Baxio Chiado metro stop near our Airbnb and then did some more shopping. After relaxing back at our place for a bit we headed to Estrela Da Bica for an amazing dinner. We had several shared plates: the hummus, shrimp dim sum, a beans and rice dish and falafel. To conclude our day we headed to Pink Street for drinks and then we were off to bed before our last day in Lisbon! Thursday we had booked an Airbnb experience and our guide João picked us up for a day of touring that morning.
Our day with João and our new friend Sa'adwas one of our favorite parts of our entire trip! We started with a drive across the bridge in Lisbon that looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge and then headed to our first wine tasting at José Maria da Fonseca (to try the Moscatel Roxo de Setúbal) before our tour at the Bacalhoa Vineyard. The tour included visiting the winery's art collection and then we learned about the process of making the wine. Our guide then took us to a tile factory before the best meal of the trip. We ate lunch at Tasca Do Isaías which was by far the best seafood I have ever had. It was fun to eat some more adventurous food than we would have ordered on our own! The last stop on our tour was visiting the Nature Park of Arrabida which gave us these fantastic views of the coast. João was nice enough to drop us off at the Belem Tower on our way back into the city and we were really sad to say goodbye! Dale and I were both exhausted from our day so we picked up some dinner at a grocery store on the way back to our Airbnb and then headed to bed early so we could catch our flight to Barcelona the next morning!
