Museum Hopper

Our last visit in Sintra was to the Quinta da Regaleira.  This was outside of the park system that the Mouros and Pena were a part of.  It is though considered part of the UNESCO heritage site. Parking here proved to be the most challenging aspect of this visit.  There was a small parking lot close to the entrance that was full – otherwise, it was one way streets with very limited street parking.  We had to do a loop twice to end up finding a spot – and had a bit of walk to the entrance (which was fine).  We bought tickets to this when we arrived around 1 pm.  I think we looked to buy tickets in advance, but could not find how to do it.  The gardens were busy, but definitely not over-crowded.  We were able to get tickets right away.  Then into the gardens to try to figure out where to go first.  I do wish they had given more of a path or guided route.  The signage was not great, so it was hard to make sure we hit the high not...

After visiting the Castelo dos Mouros , we headed to the Palace of Pena.   As I look back on this trip, we should have considered flopping these...potentially.  While we were able to get on the bus right away up to the palace, we ended up in a 30 minute line to get inside the palace.  We had bought tickets in advance -- through the same site we bought the Castelo dos Mouros tickets.  I am not sure if we had gotten there earlier, would we have been able to avoid the line. To get up to the palace, we ended up purchasing the bus ticket.  It was about 2-3 EUR each and included a round trip up to the palace and back.  The buses seemed to be coming rather frequently.  After just climbing up to the Mouros, it was nice to sit on the bus for the fairly steep climb up to the Palace of Pena.  We did not use the bus on the way back, opting to walk down instead.  I was pretty pleased with that decision. Jason waited in line and let me ge...

So, I feel like I only have the hardest posts left from our vacation.  Our first stop in Sintra was to Castelo dos Mouros .   We bough tickets in advance.   We ended up driving to Sintra.  We had our luggage with us, so it was definitely more convenient.  We were able to park fairly close to the entrance getting there a little bit before it opened.  We were the first people in there.  It was a good start to the day with a climb.  He let us in a few minutes early and up we went. The fog added a really cool element.  From one end of the towers, you can see the Palace of Pena.   It's orange glow was visible.  You could also barely the Palace of Sintra.  We did not end up going to the Palace of Sintra.  You can see the little white cylinders. The views of they valley were really pretty. You could see all the way to Lisbon. We just would have considered swapping it af...