Day 6 in Portugal                                                

Pastel de Belem  and Bread of God

Susan and I met Nuno, our guide for the day at 9:00 a.m. this morning and he drove us to Casa Pasteis de Belem for some pasta de nata but here they call these tarts pastel de Belem for their closely guarded recipe since 1837.  They crank out 30,000 of these pastries per day of these fresh and crusty little morsels. In addition we tried some "Bread of God" pictured  on the plate which was a "heavenly" delight of ham, cheese, and soft bread, with a bit of powdered sugar atop to make it even more special!

We made a plan to head directly toward the town of Sintra north of
Lisbon .  Our first visit was the park and palace of Pena as part of Sintra's World Heritage Site.  Nuno dropped off us off at the entrance and instead of waiting for the transportation ride  to the  palace entrance above us, we walked UP the steep incline to this fantasy

castle  with  a blend of Portuguese and German features with Moorish minarets, Gothic towers, and Renaissance domes.  This resident  was built  back in the 19th century for Prince Ferdinand of German ancestory after the Royal Family fled  in 1910 after a revolt.   (Think Disneyland Neuschwanstein Castle type with colorful yellow, blue tiles and red walls). The line inside to see the dining room and palace bedrooms were quite long so we opted to enjoy the courtyard and walk around the former monastery  and along the outer walls with great views instead.

 We walked down through the palace grounds through peaceful and sometime whimsical forest areas that were a combination of lush vegetation including fern gardens, camelias, fountains and tall trees,  Even one of the duck houses had castle features.

Another site in Sintra that we walked UP to was a Moorish Castle or Castelo dos Mouros).  This was built by the Moors and captured Christian forces took it in 1147, The view from the walls or towers were amazing  and the steps up were many.  From here we could get a great view  of the Atlantic Ocean in the distance,  the Pena castle above us, and the town of Sintra with these amazing homes below .

Of course, Susan desires to visit the highest part of any structure we are in so we made our way along the walls on the sides of the cliffs with huge drop offs and upward until we reached the highest altitude.   We met Nuno three hours after he dropped us off.  Together we walked down to the town of Sintra over to one of the wealthy former residence of the Monteiro family with turrets,  massive fireplaces, carved wooden ceilings, finials, and all sorts of carved stones. The Initiatic Well was a tower the went into the ground  and was linked to underground tunnels that we meandered through  many times completely in the dark, save for Susan's phone that lit our way through this strange maze.  We finally made it the beach restaurant at 4 o'clock for lunch!  I wolfed down the bread, cheese, olives, fish soup, and grilled sole.


Afterwards, we headed for the westernmost point in all of Europe to  Cabo da Roca. Hold on Susan and Nuno. The wind, she's a blowing hard today!


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