Portugal: Sintra

No

We did not sail our boat inland….

We took the bus.

We went to the VERY touristy town of Sintra in the mountains above the coast.

No, I did not get to go this time, because dogs are not allowed on the bus.

I got left behind on the boat to watch the weekend day trippers make a mess of anchoring….more on that later.

But the humans brought back pictures and told me all about it.

The first story was of their bus ride.  The bus was 4 euros each way per person.  Not as cheap as the train, but not expensive either.  But the bus drivers are MAD!

The humans took the longer scenic bus that followed the coast and hit the pennisila that claims to be the ‘furthest westerly point’ in Europe.  They do not reccommend that bus if you are at all afraid of heights or nervous of speeding down narrow streets.  Even the return journey on the inland bus was ‘hairy’.

If you are a nervous person take the train to Lisbon and a connection to Sintra.

With that adventure survived the next was to wade through tons and tons of tourists wandering about town.  Admittedly the old town is very pretty.

There are lots of castle like estates with beautiful gardens.  One of the most famous ones is Quinta da Regaleira and it is open to the public.  The humans headed for this first and got stuck there all day.

It costs 6 euros to enter.  But the exit door is an unmanned, unlabeled wooden door just to the right of the entrance.  Next time!

I was told it was worth the 6 euros, but bring a torch for the caves.

The gardens are extensive and you have full run of them, the house, the caves, the grotto’s and loads of follies.

One of the best things about the gardens is the lack of ‘health and safety’.  You can climb turrets and hang off balconies.  You have steep stairways descending into black and complete cave networks with out a single light.  It took the humans the whole day to explore the gardens and they were glad of the packed lunch they brought along.

I was happy to have them back on the boat, but it was short lived as a power boat snagged the trip line of a neighbouring sail boats anchor.  The power boat proceeded to drag the sail boat out to sea.  Into the dingy and abandoning me again, they went off to save the sail boat from drifting with no owners aboard.  The power boat cut the line free fo their props and the humans got a load of chain down to hold the boat where it settled.

They were just about to sort out a trip line for themselves.

We had seen a lot of boats use them and we liked the idea of knowing exactly where our anchor was in relations to our boat and new arrivals.  We had to start our engine, last night, and reverse to let a boat who had anchored across our chain pick up his anchor after the wind changed direction.

They have decided, after seeing people try to:

-moor to anchor trip line boys,

-pick up anchor trip line boys because they think they are floating fenders,

-and of course now we have seen someone drive over the line and lift the anchor by accident with their props.

So we have decided that the disadvantages of an anchor trip line out weight the advantages.

Then finally I got my run on the beach.  Heaven is a tennis ball!