{"id":624,"date":"2018-10-15T12:10:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T18:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skipvia.com\/Portugal18\/?p=624"},"modified":"2018-10-15T14:00:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T20:00:16","slug":"lisboa-palaces-castles-and-convents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skipvia.com\/Portugal18\/lisboa\/lisboa-palaces-castles-and-convents\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisboa: Palaces, Castles, and Convents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some early morning rain and a day that promised blustery conditions dictated our travel plans. Rather than walk around Lisboa, we opted to take the train to Sintre to explore the Pal\u00e1cio da Pena, the Castelo dos Mouros, and anything else we might run across. Time, weather, and crowds limited our exploration to the Pal\u00e1cio and the Castelo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pal\u00e1cio da Pena is a strange bird. It rests atop a very steep, rocky outcropping high above the town of Sintre. It was originally established in 1493 as a monastery, a place of quiet meditation. (Editor\u2019s note: Ironic foreshadowing.) It was destroyed by the same 1755 earthquake that destroyed buildings in Lisboa and it lay in ruins until King \u00a0Ferdinand II acquired it and everything else around it in 1838 and rebuilt the monastery as a summer palace for the royal family. He did an…interesting job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pal\u00e1cio da Pena is a top tourist attraction. Tour buses, Tuk Tuks, cabs, and sightseeing buses provide a constant stream of visitors and give you a good idea of how sheep must feel at times. The Pal\u00e1cio itself is impressive in its grand audacity, but I have a difficult time calling it beautiful. The architecture is a strange mashup of forms and colors, and the tiles\u2014beautiful as they are\u2014seem to have been moved there from a tile showroom and placed randomly along the walls. The outside is magnificent. The inside feels cramped and confining. The decor is garishly ostentatious, if you ask me. There is little of the grandeur that you might expect, particularly if you are expecting the extraordinary architecture of the Mosteiro dos Jer\u00f3nimos in Bel\u00e9m or the Alcazar in Seville. It\u2019s certainly worth a visit, and although you can roam around the outside terraces and walls, plan on being shoehorned into the interior spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some photos. (Click to enlarge.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n