hiking

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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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Pleasanton Ridge regional park - Castleridge

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This has been a busy weekend with a lot of yoga doubles and a nice hike.. there was also some singing involved! Busy but happy..

The hike was in Pleasanton ridge regional park from the Castleridge trail head. We did an 8+ mile loop which took us ~4 hours. We did good time given it just keeps going up in the initial part of the hike. It was an hours drive almost for us to get to the trailhead and given it was post lunch, starting the steep climb was a slow affair.

We saw a lot of hare, turkey, deer, red tailed hawks and frogs today!

Could have waited another 5 mintues after reaching the top. There was a solitary bench right after we managed to have tea standing up and trying to juggle tea and bhajjis, standing up.

we kept clicking as we walked today!

It was good we didn’t stop much today. Managed to come down before it got dark. As a treat to ourselves, we stopped at Thirupathi Bhimas and refilled four time he calories we burned on the hike in 1/4th the time!

Here are the nature pics from the hike..

There were like 10 frogs that surrounded my feet when getting close to the water to take this shot. Lots of frogs! First time seeing them up close in these numbers!

and a short video highlights reel.

While San and our friends would like to visit this again, I am not. Great trails, amazing views etc.. but there is a section of the trail where one big tree has fallen and there are another 3-4 trees in this section that could fall anytime! Not a big fan of trails which are not maintained well. After a lady lost her life because of a falling tree in our local park last year, very hesitant to go through trails like this!

Did enjoy the hike thoroughly today!

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Another hike for the long weekend

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Saturday was 2 back to back yoga classes and a 9 mile hike. Sunday was just one yoga class followed by a 6 mile hike. We are slowing things down.. by Tuesday physical activity will be restricted to a yoga class if we are lucky and some walking up and down office buildings..

This time we went to Quicksilver with a different group, thanks to the little one.

We have hiked this park before but this time there was a lot of water in the creek. The colors were vibrant after the rains but the trail was a little bit tricky with slush covering most of it.

We got to see a lot of turkey vultures and red tail hawks as well as a solitary deer.

Enjoyed the hike..

A few pictures..

A short video highlight reel..

We are fortunate to have these lovely places to hike in within a 30 minute driving distance!

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