Market, Sintra and Belém

Here are the last photos that I want to show you from my January trip to Lisbon. I really enjoyed this ‘Jewish flea market’. I don’t know what was Jewish about it but it was definitely flea-style, the trash and treasure kind of market.

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I love the colours.

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Here’s Joan. Mum will ‘tsk tsk’ about me wearing sneakers with a dress but it would have been impossible to walk in the pretty black shoes that I brought to wear for the work part of the week.

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Mmm, sexy reading material. Wolfgang and Rosangela paid a Euro for the sauciest one of these graphic novels.

We took a 45 minute train trip out of Lisbon to a town called Sintra. Sintra is famous for its three castles, and we made it to none of them due to underplanning and over-relaxing.

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This ‘house of cream tarts’ (queijadas) was in front of the train station.

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We came across this door on our long climb up the mountain towards the Moorish Castle.

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The first sign of the castle were these ruins.

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We reached the Moorish Castle half an hour before it was to close. We decided to save ourselves the cost of the entry fees and continued on the path to the next castle, Pena National Palace.

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It was only to be expected. Pena Palace had just closed when we arrived. By this time we were a little weary of the whole thing, so we paid for the crazy lurching bus ride down the mountain to the centre of town. It is a picturesque place, full of little craft stores and the smell of roasting chestnuts. And of course the third castle, Sintra National Palace in town, was closed too.

On our last day in Lisbon, we took a 20 minute tram ride to Belém, home to the justifiably famous Pastel de nata, the Portuguese egg tart. The tarts are so yummy! I wish I took a photo of us sprinkling cinnamon and icing sugar on them and scoffing them down.

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But here is a photo of Belém’s second most famous attraction, the Belém Tower.

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The Tower and other museums are free to visit on Sundays.

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The chapel of Jerónimos Monastery, which is a World Heritage site. It’s very pretty but, you know, I’m a bit over cathedrals and chapels now. I think I’m done, now that I’ve seen Canterbury Cathedral, York Minster, Winchester Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, the Dom in Cologne and other churches all over Germany, the Sacre Couer and Notre Dame in Paris…

Well, maybe I’ll make an exception. I might still put up the cash to visit Westminster Abbey one day.

2 comments

    • joanium says:

      Hi Ser,

      I thought of you recently too and always kept meaning to email you to get directions to your new web home. I’m glad you got back in contact! I now have your blog(s) on my blogroll.

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