Tag Archives: Scenery

A Pain in the Pena

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Thursday 27 August 2026 – Our original plan had been to scarper back to Lisbon fairly sharply today with the idea to visit Belém, a suburb which features a Manueline Monastery, a Tower and, importantly, a pie shop. However, Carlos told us that the monastery was to a certain extent shrounded in scaffolding which somewhat dimmed our enthusiasm for the jaunt. In any case, Jane had been looking at photos of the Pena Palace, showing facets that were not well-displayed in the photo we’d struggled all that bloody way up that bloody hill to get. Yes, this one, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention.

Our original intel had opined that the Palace wasn’t that much worth a visit but Jane decided that this was probably not the case, so had gone online to book tickets. I suppose that a warning light should at least have flickered over to amber when the only time slot available to book for entry to the palace was 0930, but idealism and optimism ruled the day and so we booked tickets for the palace (and the shuttle ride up from the gates – you weren’t going to get me that way a second time, oh dear me no). My thought was that getting there early would mean smaller crowds. (Can you hear the hollow laughter at this point?) And though Google asserted that the distance from the hotel to the palace was a mere 3km, we knew enough of the local terrain to realise that those kilometres were not going to be of the benevolent kind. Anyway, the 434 bus went there and ran very frequently, although we would have to catch the first bus, at 0830. With breakfast only being available from 0800 at the hotel, a certain donning of metaphorical skates was thus called for in the morning, so we were up, showered, packed and ready to go as we entered the breakfast room, and were checked out so we could get to the bus stop at 0830.

So: the Pena Palace, then. Why would one want to visit? Well, it has quite the history, and (as was clear from our photo from yesterday) has the bonkers architecture that appears to be a qualifying quality to be allowed to exist in Sintra. The village was popular with the various royal families of Portugal because of its cool summer climate (downpours included, as we found out). In 1838, King Ferdinand II (the German-born artist-king and consort to Queen Maria II) purchased the hilltop ruins of a 16th-century Hieronymite monastery that had been destroyed by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Ferdinand commissioned the Prussian engineer Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege to transform the ruins into a theatrical, vivid fairy-tale castle, which was constructed primarily between 1842 and 1854. We read that “the palace intentionally clashes bright yellow and red wings, blending Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Neo-Islamic, and Neo-Renaissance styles into a pioneering masterpiece of European Romanticism.”

Bonkers, then. But probs worth a visit.

Some of the practical realities of the day began to become clear at the bus stop, as there were a load of other people there. A French lady in the queue told us that many of them were staff for the various places along the route so they (quite reasonably) got first dibs on spaces on the bus. We managed to squeeze into the last couple of seats on the bus and it set off for its journey round the local lanes. The 434 is a circular route, which goes from Sintra, via a very roundabout route, to the Moorish Castle and then the Pena Palace before returning to Sintra and doing the same loop again; these buses run very frequently, so it would have been no issue had we been forced to wait for the next one.

The journey to the palace was along narrow and winding roads, so took some 20 minutes and deposited us by the palace gates just before 9am. It looked like there was a bit of a queue

and, annoyingly, people seemed to be jumping it, so I wandered up towards the front to see what was going on, and discovered that it was

really quite a substantial queue, with some kind of fast track system being operated by shifty-looking operatives, who were probably just normal tour guides doing their best to help their people.

At 0900 on the dot the queue started moving forward and we actually spent only a few minutes getting through the gates and into the grounds. It’s a 10-minute walk from the gates to the palace and lazy people (like me) could pay for a shuttle to do the hard work, and so we had a ride to the entrance. From the bus, you (along with hordes of others) walk through an impressive gate

and get your first (and, it has to be said, very striking) view of the palace

before you round a corner and….join a queue. (Note to travellers: tickets give you an entry time and woe betide you if you are late.)

The queue leads you through a tunnel (helpfully described on the audio guide, should you have it about your phone)

which is, again, made somewhat more aggravating by people skipping past because they’d paid for fast track access. As you shuffle forward, you do, though, start to get an idea of what awaits you.

As with all palace visits, one gets led along a pretty much pre-determined path through the palace rooms, which are very palacey but also somewhat Manueline, which adds a bit of spice to the otherwise rather humdrum run of furniture and decorations. Having shuffled through yet another grand and elaborate portal,

one gets to say hello to old Ferdinand

and then carries on through to the Stag Room, which admittedly makes something of an impact.

This was designed to be the palace’s large dining room, part of the palace’s reception and entertainment centre, along with the Great Hall and the Smoking Room. It takes its name from the stags’ heads you can see dotted around the walls. The Great Hall is next,

again decorated in the elaborate, not to say overwrought, Manueline style. The decor is quite extreme but there are several more conventional  palacey touches, such as overdone lamp stands.

Another doorway

leads to the Smoking Room, with its lovely Murano glass chandelier

and beautifully-worked ceiling.

Impressive as these rooms were, I was beginning to get very fed up with the crowds and the slow progress, but at last we were allowed out into the open air so we could admire the buildings from the outside, which is what I was really interested to photograph. We debouched on to the Queen’s Terrace, which allowed us to get an eyeful of some of the astonishing architecture and decor.

There were, of course, the usual run of people who seem to think that a view like this is improved by having their stupid, gurning faces in front of it.

There were other rooms to take a look at, such as the Sacristy

and the chapel, which was a tad crowded

before one could get through to see it properly.

I was a bit palace-roomed-out by this stage, but we spent some more time exploring various views of the buildings.

before talking the Wall Walk

which neatly led to the reciprocal view of the castle from which we’d viewed the palace less than 24 hours before.

The urge for caffeine was beginning to kick in by this stage, so we looked round for some more angles for photos

and then headed for the café. Trouble is, loads of others had had the same idea, so we thought “sod it” and headed for the exit, giving me a view that allowed me to formulate my First Rule of Pena Palace: if you hate crowds, don’t visit Pena Palace.

(The Second Law is: If your desire to see bonkers architecture is greater than your hatred of crowds then do visit Pena Palace.)

On the way out, we made a couple of useful discoveries: there is a much quieter cafeteria outside the ticket barriers

but which still gives you an inkling of what the palace is like;

and there is such a thing as “chocolate salami”, which is an upmarket version of rocky roads and so delicious that we had to have a second portion.

As we walked down to the exit, we saw hordes of people still pouring in and about to have their enthusiasm crushed by the queues awaiting them,

and even more outside waiting for this experience.

One of the 434 buses was there as we exited so we hopped on for a ride back to the station. For such a short distance (just a couple of kilometres), it took a long time, stuck in a slow traffic jam to and through the village. But we got to the station eventually, and found that it was 40 minutes until the Lisbon train, which was just enough time for a beer. On arrival in Lisbon, we pottered down to the same hotel we’d been in before, where we were effusively greeted by Rita on the reception desk, who immediately recognised us as the people that the hotel still owes over £400. She apologised for the slow process through which their finance people were grinding, and leavened this depressing news with the titbit that we’d been upgraded to an Executive room, which was nice of them.

We relaxed for a bit and then went out for another splendid meal at Em Alta Na Baixa before retiring for the rest of the day.

Because (drum roll…..) the walking starts tomorrow! Our journey to Santiago will start from the Cathedral and take us several weeks. In the few days we’ve been here we’ve already walked over 25km, and we have just the 630 to go. Do please stay with us for the journey.

 

 

*  Carlos told us that until about 15 years ago, Sintra was a lovely quiet place, but then Condé Nast magazine buggered things up by nominating Portugal as the best tourist destination in the world, after which it’s been overrun. The result is living proof of what our late next-door neighbour Cyril used to say: “Tourism is ruined by tourists”. The place was madly busy when we were there – traffic jams, difficulty passing people on the pavements, crowds everywhere. Nice to see a place being successful, particularly somewhere as arcane as Sintra, but one wonders where the money’s going. Renovation work on the three major buildings we visited was apparently being funded by EU grant (and reluctantly at that – the authorities nearly missed the boat) rather than tourist takings. Sintra is absolutely worth visiting, but at peak season, like we did it? Less rewarding, I’d say.

 

More looking around Lisbon

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Monday 24 August 2026 – The weather forecast for the morning was not one that encouraged tourism in any way at all, so we treated ourselves to a lie-in and a late breakfast. The Plan A for the day was to take the 15E tram to Belém, admire the monastery, tower and statue dedicated to Henry the Navigator before retiring to Belém’s famous Pie Shop to have one of their pastel de natas, which are world famous in Belem. We’re very fortunate that Jane checked out this plan in some detail in the morning, at which point we discovered that Belém is shut on a Monday. This gave us a fair chunk of the day back, and we decided that a visit to the castle was likely to be a decent thing to do. We relaxed for the rest of the morning whilst comparing the Met Office and Accuweather versions of the forecast to see when we could venture out.

In the end, the Met Office was more sanguine about the rain clearing so we decided to believe its version of the truth and headed out towards the castle via a coffee stop, which was educational in its way, both for us and the café staff. Our serving of choice for coffee is a flat white, which we thought translated into Portuguese as a meia de leite. The waitress insisted that a galão was what we were after, so we trusted her. Not that it’s a huge issue, but future coffee-drinking travellers might like to to note that a galão is effectively a latte, so if you want a flat white, don’t ask for one of them. We pointed out the similarity between galão and caffe latte to the waitress and hope that future visitors to that coffee shop will benefit from our experience.

We also passed some nice tile work,

particularly fine examples being at the viewpoint the Miradouro de Santa Luzia

which rather flattered to deceive, since the view it gave one was mainly of cruise ships in the harbour. I read that it’s at the head of an elevador, and indeed followed a sign pointing me at it. But I couldn’t find it and further research (thank you to my editor) informs us that it’s well disguised and looks like part of an apartment block, so it’s one of those things that IYKYK; Google Maps won’t help you find it.

The online map that Walk The Camino had sent us as part of our preparation was of the opinion that the Caminho actually started at Santa Luzia, rather than at the Cathedral, which would on the face of it seem to be a more intuitive place to start on your 610km journey. We cast around for a bit to see if we could find any evidence of this; Jane had noted that there was a Rua de Santiago, so that seemed a promising avenue, sorry, Rua of investigation,

and Jane eventually spotted this, on a building nearby, which turned out to be – wait for it – the church of Santiago de Lisboa!

So our online map was accurate, but I’m buggered if I saw any other signposts for a Caminho in the area, or, indeed anywhere else we’d been in the city.

We’d made a fair uphill journey (sans elevador,if you’ll pardon me mixing my languages) to get to Santa Luzia. The castle was further uphill. Everything in Lisbon is further uphill. This is a typical profile of a wander round Lisbon.

We made our way to the castle, for which Jane had bought tickets in advance – which is just as well, as the ticket office and entry were small-to-medium sized bundles of chaos in an otherwise relatively ordered world. We’d hoped to get on a 1pm English language guided tour, but long story short there wasn’t one, so we just wandered round to see what we could see.  And what we could see mainly was some very fine views across the city.

Across the water is the Santuário de Cristo Rei, with its (slightly) junior version of the Rio de Janeiro Christ statue,

and we got a lovely panorama of the city

as well as a view of things we’d seen in passing yesterday with Carlos: the ruins of the Carmo Convent;

the “under maintenance” Elevador Santa Justa;

and the Graça church (if you look carefully, you can see the funicular carriage in transit).

We could also make out about half of the Star of David fountain in Praça Martim Moniz, the gateway to the Jewish quarter.

Lisbon was under Moorish rule for almost 450 years from 711. The fortress was built in the 10th century and was captured by King Afonso Henriques during the Siege of Lisbon in 1147, part of the great Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. Because we didn’t manage to get on to a guided tour, we didn’t learn much more about the castle, but it was pleasant to wander around. Entry to the main part is over a moat

which Carlos had told us (with, I think, a certain ghoulish relish) was filled with human excrement as a way of discouraging invaders. This was in its day, you understand. Modern health and safety would have something to say about it these days.

The walls and parapets are extremely well-preserved and accessible.

There are several items of interest, such as this sundial

and arrow slits constructed so that bows could be shot in multiple directions.

All in all it was an enjoyable hour or so we spent wandering around. There are peacocks in the grounds and we saw two peahens, each with their chicks of differing ages, which were rather cute.

We had a very engaging encounter just outside the exit of the castle. A sign invited us to look inside the Castle’s church, the Church of Santa Cruz, labelled “Lisbon’s birthplace”*, and so, on a whim, we did.  It’s nothing particularly spectacular inside,

although the altar piece is lavishly decorated.

What marked it out was a chance conversation with a young lady who was busy doing detailed conservation work on some of the elaborate curlicues.

She explained to us what she was doing: applying a white base to smooth out the outlines of the feature; then she would apply some red colour (which you can see in places already set); and finally she would apply gold leaf

which would be burnished in once it was well and truly stuck down. She was delightful to talk to and very patient with our dumb questions.

The walk back to the hotel led past a few other sights of note: some street art;

a shop with a bizarre range of artefacts on display

including, delightfully, Christ on a bicycle,

an image which will stay with me whever I need to swear; some more lovely azulejas,

and the excavation site of a Roman theatre.

which once would have looked like this.

There was a wall with a lovely demonstration of anti-aliasing (Google that, if necessary)

a café which actually had flat white on the menu,

and the church of St.Anthony

with its vivid floral display,

which Jane managed to get a picture of between the hordes of people using it as the backdrop for fucking selfies.

For our dinner, we went to an area we’d first noted in our search for Earl Grey (we’d thought that an Auchan, even a little local one, might have some, but no….). It’s a cross road to the Rua Augusta, which has any number of touristy eateries along it, but one restaurant among all the others called to us

mainly because it was the only one not to have pictures of its food on display. It was called Em Alta Na Baixa,  and it was very good – a fitting note on which to (pretty much) end our stay in Lisbon.

We will meet Carlos tomorrow and he has, he tells us, plans for about an hour more of showing us around Lisbon before he takes us off to Sintra – where he will be our guide the day after. Sintra appears to have all manner of strange and wonderful Things To See, and we’ve never been there before, so we’re rather looking forward to it and hope that you now are, also, and will stay in touch with these pages to see how we got on.

 

 

*  The Igreja Paroquial do Castelo, also known as the Church of Santa Cruz, is an 18th century building within the castle walls, occupying the site of the old fortress mosque (which itself was on the site of a Roman temple). Since the mosque was purified and consecrated as a Christian church immediately upon the reconquest of Lisbon on 25 October 1147, and the church holds the city’s oldest administrative parish records, it merits the title “Lisbon’s birthplace”.

 

Day 6 – The Most Expensive G&T In The World?

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Friday 19 June 2026 – At yesterday’s briefing, we had been, as usual, presented with a choice between two walks. The main difference would be pace, with a well ‘ard group simply walking a little faster and doing a couple of extra kilometres before being set free to get some refreshment. I actually put my name down for that, because it didn’t seem, on the basis of the information to hand, to be too arduous, just slightly longer. However, on the day, given that the forecast was for temperatures in the 30s (yes! almost as hot as the UK where I write this one week later!) I chickened out and joined the shorter walk. Which turned out not to be shorter at all. Or even much slower. But it was still chickening out.

Anyhoo, for both groups the end point would be the same: the jewel of the Italian Riviera – Portofino.

Our start point was a place called Camogli, which would be a boarding point for a boat ride and which Tomaso said was-a nice-a place, so I expected another charming fishing village. Wrongly, as it turned out. Camogli is 38km as the crow flies from Bonassola, but as the bus drives it’s over double that distance and takes an hour and a half. The bus we were in was the same (horrible, noisy, cramped, uncomfortable) bus that had brought us in from the airport the previous weekend. And it dropped us in the middle, it seemed, of a city. Which is fair enough, what with Camogli being a city an’ all, just not what I’d expected. It didn’t seem like-a nice-a place at all, particularly since the bus had to drop us off some distance from where we had to board the boat. There seemed to be other tourist groups as well, as we trooped off to find our quay.

We passed a point where we could look further along the coast, and could actually make out the city of Genoa in the distance.

Then abruptly we turned right down some steps, and we could see why Tomaso liked the town.

There were lots of steps down through some typically Italian narrow streets, and some very fine trompe l’oeil on the buildings.

The harbour itself is very attractive,

and the structure of the town is unusual, as can be seen from a map.

You can see that  there is a peninsula jutting out from the mainland; originally this was an island (hence being called L’isola) reached by a bridge, and this was the original old town. We went for a look round, but only after having bought our lunch, at a focaccieria specifically recommended by Tomaso.

The main component of l’isola is a church, the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta.

To get to it requires climbing steps which then gives one a decent view back over the harbour,

and, looking the other way, the town beach.

Outside the church is a lovely tiled description of L’isola

above a patterned courtyard.

The church itself is, once again, sumptuously appointed, with some gorgeous painted illustrations and decoration

and some colourful stained glass.

We had a few moments before our boat departed, so I wandered round taking some more photos of the harbour.

The rather colourful boat shown above is “U Dragun“, a symbol of Camogli, a hybrid sail- and rowing boat, known for its traditional design and used in historic re-enactments and festivals.

As we boarded our boat, we noted that someone, sadly, had lost their hat,

but there were lots of places that would have sold a replacement, so probably not a tragedy. Soon, we were off and could see the slightly surreal frontage of the city – all those uniform buildings with their uniform dark windows staring at the world.  Attractive, but slightly unsettling at the same time.

It was a short trip, just round the headland to a place called San Fruttuoso. The reason we were going by boat is that it can only be accessed on foot or by sea. It’s well-known for its abbey,

a Benedictine monastery dating back to the year 1000. It’s also a miniature beach resort, of course,

and, unusually, something of a centre for scuba diving. In the abbey is a statue called “Christ of the Abyss”.

which is a replica of a statue which has been placed in the waters of the bay in memory of Dario Gonzatti, the first Italian to use scuba gear in his dives, who tragically died near this spot in 1947. It’s at a depth of about 17 metres, and is garlanded with flowers every July by scuba divers in memoriam.

We had to walk around the back of the abbey to get to the start of our trail, and this gave us some more views of the village.

We passed an old lavatoio,

which would once have been where the public could wash their clothes, and walked between a restaurant and its terrace,

which looked like a wonderful place to have said “sod it, it’s too hot, let’s have lunch”, but we pressed on. The sea was a wonderful colour. It would have been a lovely lunchtime view on that terrace. Sigh.

It almost immediately became obvious that my hopes for a gentle uphill gradient for our walk were completely misplaced.

Bugger. That lunch-on-the-terrace idea was an increasingly attractive proposition at this point. But we soldiered on. To give you some idea of the climb, here’s a view of a Saracen watchtower taken early on.

And here’s the view of the same watchtower taken some 37 minutes later.

Between these two shots, this is the terrain we had to deal with.

We got a final view of San Fruttuoso

before – finally! – making it to our lunch spot,

where, amusingly, the well ‘ard set were still having lunch. We shooed them off so we could have ours, and then pressed on. The views continued to be lovely

but the trend, annoyingly, continued to be upwards,

albeit past some lovely views.

I see some cypresses have escaped from Tuscany

I discovered this boat is called Sea Cloud II, operated by Sea Cloud Cruises

The path levelled out a fraction and we came across, of all things, a lamppost! With a light bulb still in it!

Then there were more, and it became clear that we’d reached an outpost of civilisation, a small hamlet called Prato, where there was a water point.

Rebecca invited us to refill our water bottles, but we didn’t, because we still had plenty left. The general manic focus on water and hydration was a bit puzzling to Jane and me. We were enjoined to take litres and litres of the stuff with us, and each of us had a couple of water bottles in our backpacks; hers were 800ml and mine were 500. In all the walking in all the heat, we never needed to broach mine – I simply carried the same water up and down all the hills we’d covered. And yet we didn’t go thirsty at any point. Sure, the beers at the end of the walks were very welcome, but I found the dichotomy of what we were told we needed and what we actually drank a bit of a mystery.

Anyhow, the route to Portofino was all downhill from here, which at first seemed like a good idea,

leading us past a fantastic view of the town of Portofino,

but the path soon degenerated into steps.

Lots of the fuckers.

I had been perfectly all right going down steep slopes for the past few days, but for my right knee, these steps were the last straw. By the time I walked into Portofino, it was clear that All Was Not Well. I wasn’t crippled; walking straight and level was OK, but anything other needed care, concentration and, preferably a handrail. Didn’t stop me from joining the others at the Dolce & Gabbana bar for a glass (or, in my case, two) of something cold, though. We were joined there by the well ‘ard set, who were supposed to have done extra kilometrage out to the Portofino lighthouse and back, but it was too hot, poor dears.  Actually, in their defence, I think they took a longer route from the top down to Portofino which involved a more gentle descent – longer and hotter, maybe, but their knees were still working when they got down.

I was expecting Portofino to be (a) larger and (b) more impressive than it actually is. It’s by no means unattractive

but nothing outstandingly different from the sort of places we’d seen over the last days. It is, though, at the heart of the Italian Riviera and has a reputation of being very up-market. Well, anywhere that’s got a Dolce & Gabbana shop that doubles as a bar is likely to be on the posh side. So I was not particularly surprised to see the bar bill.

I had the gin and “Portofinese Gold” (perfectly nice beer in a very fancy bottle), and Jane had the spremuta – freshly squeezed OJ. Naif that I am, I don’t think I’ve ever paid over £20 for a G&T before. I’m not complaining, by the way – I knew it was going to be expensive. But I thought the prices worth commenting on, you understand. Actually the chap at the till was all over the place and initially wanted to charge me €90, but I’d only had a couple of drinks, so I was wise to his game.

We had to make a reasonably swift departure to catch the boat for a further short cruise round the Portofino headland. Out we went,

past the Splendido Hotel, which is a Belmond gaff, and thus thoroughly in line with the up-market values espoused by the Portofino set,

and the Portofino lighthouse that the well ‘ard set had so signally failed to get to.

The destination for our short ferry ride was the next town along the headland, Santa Margherita Ligure. It has the same slightly unsettling uniformity of architecture in the houses along the sea front, so it’s obviously A Thing in these parts.

It’s a very fine town,

with the usual crop of top-notch trompe l’oeil décor

but we had no time to stop and stare, as our bus was waiting for us so we could bump and grind our way back to Bonassola in time for a slightly delayed evening briefing and drinkies before dinner. Today was our last walk, and we had to return home on the morrow, so the briefing was kind of important in order that we understood the timings for the day. My knee being in the state it was, I was rather grateful that the hotel had a lift to get me to the fourth floor terrace for that…

Our official flight time home the next seemed quite reasonable, but because of the potential for cock-ups courtesy of the EES, we had to make an early start. The day turned out not to be entirely uneventful and I will detail it in the next post, which will be the valedictory entry for what has been an excellent, if quite sweaty, week.