Day 16 - Lisboa, En Route to Madrid: Sintra, Last Bacalhau, Overnight Train to Madrid

Another late start this final Portuguese AM -- my body was tired from the day before. Or maybe just tired from all this traveling. Didn't check out of the hotel until after 11AM. I left my luggage there w/ the front desk so that I could spend the PM exploring Sintra.

Caught the suburban train out to Sintra. Took about 40 minutes. Upon arrival I ate right there next to the train station... at a Pizza Hut. LOL. I just got a personal pan pizza, but I discovered what is inside that stuffed crust pizza that gets advertised everywhere! Gross.

This was also the point where I realized I failed to take the memory card out of my laptop and put it back in my camera. So, unless I wanted to find a place that sold memory cards i was left with just the camera in my Portuguese cell phone (my LG L1 II, or as I like to call it, my LG -1.1, haha).

Checked the time and decided to forgo extensive Sintra pics. I had maybe 3 hours tops before needing to head back. I figured it would be nice for once to not feel compelled to take 50 pics of touring documentation, ha.

And it was nice. Ended up buying the hop-on/hop-off bus pass that looped around all the Sintra sites. Got on the bus right at the train station. My God, imagine any standard full-size city bus being navigated up a steep 1.5 lane heavily wooded mountainside with hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Crazy! Anyway, I got off at the Moorish Castle.

A pic inside the Moorish Castle

A LOT of stairs, a lot of them kinda dangerous... climbing around that thing felt like a huge, historical adult playground. I was sweaty by the end of it so I got a beer and a water at the little snack bar there and chilled for a bit.

Once done, I decided to walk back down to the historical center of Sintra. My knees hurt by the time I descended all the stairs back down the mountainside. Made a quick walk through some of the most touristy parts of downtown Sintra and took myself right over to the bus stop to catch it all the way back down to the train station.

Caught the train back to Lisbon, then walked up to my hotel as a kind of final scenic stroll. Got the luggage and caught the metro out to the Oriente station, where my overnight train would be departing from. Went through the large modern mall they have there and ended up at eating at a sit-down place that touted itself as traditional Portuguese food.

Why was my food (Bacalhau com Broa a Serrana) smiling at me?  Haha.

Finished up and still have maybe an hour before the overnight train departed. Charged my phone in the waiting area, read a bit. Finally boarded the train and I was on my way back to Spain the next morning.