Portugal

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Sintra, Portugal - as cute as it gets!

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The previous post in this series is here..

Our day 2 in Portugal was a bus tour to Sintra, then to Pena Palace, Cabo de Roca, and Cascais.

This first post is about the first part of the visit to Sintra. A cute hilly town.. we were picked up early from the square outside Baixa on a viator guided tour, and it was an hour plus bus ride to Sintra. We passed an aquaduct that was an engineering marvel (for any time)!

Got to listen to some history of the Moorish people who used to rule Portugal. We got to spend an hour walking around this place with a stop at a local pastry shop, Lord Byron’s cafe and a walk around the steps to the Musuem. We also got to walk up to Uniao das freguesias de Sintra… there was no time to go through it.. just walk outside it. It was a half mile hike up the hill and we had just enough time to go to the top and be back. We crossed some landmarks like Lawrence hotel..

A few pictures..

Two photo galleries.. one in landscape

and one in portrait format

A video highlights reel of this part of the trip..

The next leg of this tour on the next post..

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An evening in Baixa

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The previous post in this series is here..

After our guide dropped us off in Baixa, our first stop was the Elevator. San told me that standing in line to go up that elevator was not worth it. So we walked up the steps to the streets above and got pictures.. when we walked back down it was early evening and there was an intense craving for chai and desi food. We did not get a good read of the map. So we ate at the first indian food we could find. It was decent food but we simply could not sit inside the restaurant as it had a weird smell. Later we learned that there are places with nicer seating and less smoke.

Then we decided to walk all the way to the other end of the main road to the water front. I had a tough time catching up to my wife as she was running everywhere and my ability to follow was limited by the number of butter naans that had been consumed. It was an amazing evening with the sky putting on a show for us at the waterfront.

After spending an hour or so taking pictures and watching the street performers, we walked back to our hotel.

A video highlight reel ..

We were going on an all day packaged tour the following day. So we went to sleep early. My local tourguide had already visited two of the three places we were going to see and had already started describing it to me!

Our first day in Portugal was a hit !

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Pasteis De Belem

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The previous post in this series is here..

We had one more stop in Belem area. It was the Church and a pastry shop right near the church called Pasteis de Belem. This bakery has been around for a long long time and they have this one delicacy that is egg based. (angeye namakku appeattu!).

San kept raving about it as did our guide. So off we went, stood in line. Our guide knew the staff. so we got a little closer to the baking tour which was nice. Then we got to eat. I opted for a different pastry as the strong smell of eggs did not agree with me.

The two ladies were rolling their eyes constantly at my hot cocoa and pastry.

We got some to go in hopes that we could keep it in the fridge and bring it to the kids. The expiry date out of fridge was going to be 36 hours tops. So we got as freshly made stuff as we could get. Then we drove back to Baixa area. Our guide dropped us off and took off to do homework! Apparently a student doing this guide thing part time!

A video highlight reel of this segment.

It was still bright out. So we went to find dinner and decided to walk back to the gate and water front. We were treated to some interesting sights and sounds the rest of the evening. That in the next post..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.