Just Putting Around: Cascais, Sintra, Guarda: "Travel as much as you can, as far as you can, as long as you can. Life's not meant to be lived in one place."

We sadly leave Lisbon and head to Cascais and then Sintra, ultimately ending up in Guarda for our last night in Portugal. Cascais is a quick hop from Lisbon, we get there and head straight to the Boca do Inferno, the mouth of hell. What a sight!

We spent some time wandering arounds the cliffs, checking out all the amazing views of the Inferno. It was quite a sight to see! Look at how clear the water is, Pepe wishes he had a fishing pole.

We then make a short jump over to Sintra, well it should have been a short jump being that it is only 20 or so minutes from Cascais. We make it to the city, up the narrow windy roads, but alas there is no parking to be found anywhere. We drive around for over an hour with no luck. We finally decided to head back down to the train station and ride the bus in. First we had to walk to another bus station, then catch not one, not two, but three buses, each costing money to get to the top, the Pena National Palace. Being that 1) we were limited on time in the first place, 2) we still have a three hour drive to Guarda afterwards and 3) we already spent over 2 hours just getting to the palace, we were pretty fried upon entering the palace grounds.

Its unfortunate since I was super excited about coming to Sintra after numerous people had told me about how fun and beautiful it was. Honestly, I probably would have given up by now, but Ray was determined to not let the palace get the better of us. I’m not sure why it was so difficult for us, maybe because we were tired from the night before or maybe we just didn't do diligent research before coming, but for whatever reason, we struggled immensely with this place.

Let's just say that this wasn't my favorite place, but keep in mind, that this is my opinion solely based on my experience. To me, being at the palace of Pena seemed a bit like Disneyland. There were tons of tourists, it was extremely hot, and we were nickeled and dimed for just about everything. On the positive side, the views from the palace were awesome, looking up at the palace, overlooking the city and the Moorish Castle.

There was a wall walk that allowed you to walk all along the perimeter of the palace that was cool too.

I got a great shot of one of the towers with the sun.

Once inside though was a different story. Having been to the Neuschwanstein Castle outside of Munich, this palace had a very similar feel. Everything was behind sheets of plastic or partitioned off. I understand that this must be done in order to protect the rooms and artifacts; however, for me it takes away from charm and presence of the palace. In a way, it seems fake. I attempted to avoid any pictures with unnecessary barricades in them, as well as the numerous other tourists also there. Pepe found a cool face within the walls.

I must admit that the views of the palaces and castle from below are way more magical than actually standing on the top.

After our stint in Sintra, we make the trek to Guarda, our stop for the night on our way to Salamanca. We get there, find our hotel and park instantly. Cool fact is that the old castle’s wall actually runs straight through our hotel and the hotel is built around it. It was really cool to see. We head out to town to grab dinner and see the sights. Within minutes we are surrounded by the Se’, a stunning old cathedral.

The view only got better as the sun went down.

The cute lil square in front of the Se’.

We walked through the streets and noticed many decorations, bbqs, sardines and street vendors. Somehow we managed to come into town as the Saintly celebrations began in Guarda, tonight was night one.

Pepe was asked to dance by a nice gentleman.

We happened into a tiny plaza with a stage (one that popped out of a truck, like a tent trailor).

On stage there were four girls, all dressed up, singing and dancing. They danced the exact same dance to every song that came on. Lets just say that after a few songs, we had learned all their moves. Ray and I enjoyed watching the crowd dance and all the little kids running around, taking in the culture and traditions with a few cañas.