Lisbon - Day Two

Today was Monday and most of the museums were closed so I took a local train to Sintra, some 15 miles northwest of Lisbon. Sintra was the former summer escape of Portugal's kings and is a mix of natural and man-made beauty with its fantasy castles and lush parks. From the train station I took a bus to the thousand year old ruins of the Castelo dos Mouros or Moorish Castle. The Castle was built as a military fortress by the Moors and acted as a watchtower over the Atlantic coast. In 1840 King Ferdinand 11, a monarch with great artistic taste, restored these romantic ruins as part of the landscape of the Park of  Pena. It was a fabulous experience to clamber up and down the sandstone steps along the battlements and ascend the towers of this ancient edifice. From the Castle the bus took me up a steep, serpentine road to the Palácio de Pena or Pena Palace. This magical hilltop palace sitting high above Sintra was the inspiration of the flamboyant Ferdinand, who commissioned a German architect to build a fantasy castle mixing elements of both German and Portuguese styles. The result was a bizarre but wonderful mélange of Gothic towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets and Manueline carvings. Manueline is the sumptuous 16th century composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation incorporating martime elements. From the courtyard, which was the cloister of the 16th century monastery on which the palace was built, I wandered through the Royal Dining Room and Pantry, decked out with the Royal Family's finest tableware and ceiling tiles, the King's Art Nouveau Bedroom, the Queen's Bedroom and Dressing Room,  which amazingly contained what was state-of-the-art conveniences, the very first flush toilets and hot showers in Portugal. From the Queen's balcony one could enjoy sweeping views of Lisbon. On leaving the Palace I walked through the lush Pena Park with its lakes, giant sequoia trees and exotic plants back to Sintra. In Sintra I made my way to the Palácio Nacional, which dates back to the 15th century and is the oldest surviving royal palace in Portugal. The palace is of great beauty and wonderfully maintained. Some of its outstanding features were the Swan Room, the ceiling of which is decorated with graceful swans. Apparently,  the king's daughter, who loved swans, married a Belgian prince and the king missed her so much he had swans painted above. Another was the Magpie Room. In this case the ceiling is covered in magpies. The story goes the king was caught kissing a lady-in-waiting and was so frustrated with the court gossip he had the ceiling painted with magpies. The King's bedroom was astonishing with an Italian Renaissance headboard in ebony, silver and painted copper and gorgeous Manueline tiles on the walls. The most striking room was probably the Stag Room, lined with trophies from successful hunts below a richly decorated ceiling with the King's Coat of Arms at the top surrounded by the coats of arms of his chilren. I ended my tour around the palace in the abundant kitchen  with its amazing conical twin chimneys, which rise above the palace and can be seen from afar. A delightful excursion.