anniversary

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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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Our first day in Lisbon

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Yes.. this is part of a missed series of blog posts on the 25th wedding anniversary trip.. that trip itself is nearing its anniversary.. so I better write about it before it becomes murky.

We flew from Prague to Lisbon first thing in the morning. The previous post in this series is here..

We took a Taxi from the airport that dropped us off in the Baixa area (cars were not allowed inside this main road that leads to the gate. Had to roll our carry on suitcases on the cobblestones for a good 20 minutes and reached our hotel. It was cute and cozy. Bepoet was the name. We put our things in the room and promptly came down to see as many things as we could for the rest of the evening and night. Given how crazy we are when it comes to covering points on city tours, have to break this into multiple posts..

We got a map and finally decided to walk to the first stop, the cathedral. I did impress a bunch of church goers with my backbending ability while holding an iPhone steady to take this almost 270 degree pano shot.

After we walked around the cathedral up a slope, there was a bus that could take us around all the spots. We decided to help a local girl with her tuk tuk business and had her take us around the city. First we went up to the vista point on the local hill, and from there we made it to Belem. Sangeetha has already been to Lisbon before and she also turned into a tourguide. I was getting a stereophonic guided tour at some point. On the way we saw the replica of the golden gate bridge, a replica of the Jesus from Rio.

A gallery of landscapes photos from this leg of the tour

and a portrait gallery

Once at Belem we visited the Vasco de Gama monument, the Belem tower and a church. We only caught the museum from a distance as there was no time to visit the museum. The lady was on the clock and the museum was closing. After this we were going to stop to eat something special. Both the guide and San hyped this up to no end.. that on the next post..

but before that.. a video highlights reel of our start to seeing Lisbon!

at first glance, Lisbon is a city like no other city we have visited before!

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.