27/10/25 A HUGE FULL DAY!!!! 7.30am – Of course I’m early for my tour start, but I was hoping to get some breakfast in but not a store or bakery was open. Apparently, Lisbon doesn’t awake till 8am. LOL. I sacrificed myself to a nearby Starbucks … but only to get juice. I’m saved!! What a great day planned some months prior. Odyssey Tours for a regional bus tour of nearby towns & landmarks of Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo Roca Coast & Cascais plus the additional Full Pena Palace and Regaleira sights included & our bus arrived right on schedule, but we had to wait till the exact time for our guide, Mario, an early 40s & of great humour to welcome us. It was a full bus indeed, not a spare seat. Now get ready for lots of photos & details for this is a packed tour of almost everything. Stand by for 44photos of truly amazing landmarks & scenery.

The bus meandered around to the outskirts of Lisbon & then battled the freeway & about an hour out (traffic) we entered a regional town of Sintra, but prior to this Mario points out several sights along the way, like the super impressive Roman type water viaduct (aqueduct) that was used for centuries, right up to the 1970s for the water supply to several parts of Lisbon. This viaduct is quite some distance in the air, around 50-70m in parts & its general length is 18klms but with its added canal system it reaches 58klms & building started in 1713 & finished in 1748. From my seat I couldn’t get a photo & same for the other sight of significance being the 25 de Abril Bridge in the distance, built to a smaller scale of the Golden Gate Bridge by the same designer, but still impressive. This bridge links the city of Lisbon to Almada on the Sth bank of The Tagus River, spanning 1,013m & was inaugurated on 6^th August 1966 & was named Salazar Bridge after the Portuguese dictator. It was renamed after the successful Carnation Revolution, 25^th April 1974.

Sintra (Photos below) was once the summer escape for Portugal Royalty but as more elites visited, the village changed. The Palace National da Pena is the main attraction in this region & the one road in & out is a nightmare of literally inch-by-inch traffic & ultra tight bends. Our driver, Phillip had the judgement of a maestro using every inch available & I mean inch. So close sometimes & will we ever get there, but we must do our first stop of 3 where we are shown the city square where the National Palace of Sintra is sited on the side of it & from there you can take in some of the village views. Walking about 100m up the road incline we stop to look at the first vision of a mansion described below, but first Mario shows us this quaint little building, called Lavrences Hotel (translated to Lawrence) where it has been serving beer, etc non-stop since 1764. The longest server of beer in Europe. Lord Byron even stayed here (middle right photo of apricot building).

A little further up the road (Stop 3) we venture through the big wrought iron gates to view the grounds of this estate called The Quinta da Regaleira estate of 4 hectares of forests, jotted sculptured work, fountains & walls, etc built by an eccentric freemason, António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro who built an enormous gothic mansion on it as well, but the most famous feature is the mysterious Initiation Well, built 1904 – 11. This well is an inverted tower with a spiral staircase, some 27m deep. It is based upon death & a rebirth theme & has a myriad of tunnels running off it. It’s unclear the meaning of the tunnels & what they were actually for. There’s even an underground lake that feeds off a small waterfall. The base of this tower has the Templar symbol tiled into the floor, so again, the mystery continues in regard to the Templar Knights Order. Again, the mansion shows some incredible architecture, finishes & furniture.

Next, we venture to the Palace National da Pena but it’s a painful journey winding your way up the elevation in crawling traffic. No-one yet has come up with an idea to limit the traffic & get people up there. This road is a nightmare. I would suggest a large carriage module SkyRail (Cable car) as my best first choice & then make it a one-way loop road. Such a narrow winding elevated road that is beyond in catering for the traffic of sightseers. Once we were dropped off there is limited time to do so & our bus driver, Phillip has to keep moving & do this entire loop again to retrieve us as there is no car or bus parking at the entrance. Surely a torture for him. That doubles the traffic volume .. der!!! Hopefully, the newly elected Mayor may fix this crap .. but Mario doubts it based on past experiences.

This Palace National da Pena is a 19^th century of pure romanticism & fanciful architecture by King Ferdinand 11 with colours abound internally & externally. Ferdinand had a pre-arranged marriage with the Portugal Queen Maria π & had 11 children, but she died at 34 giving birth. He was King from 1837 – 1853. With Ferdinand being new to the Portugal people he used his own wealth to construct/ renovate this castle from a previous monastery as a ‘thank you gift’ to the people of Portugal for accepting him & not use the country’s money. In 1995 it was declared an UNESCO World Heritage site.

He used almost every type of architecture occurring in the then known world to bring it all into one place. He was his own architect too with other architects seconded. The ceilings & floors, plus the room’s designs are beyond amazing. The state rooms are presented as they were in 1910 when the royals vacated. The cabinetry & furniture is of an amazing high standard. Enjoy the photos but it doesn’t bring it justice. This palace is enormous & so are the grounds .. you would need more than a day just to see the grounds. The walk up the hill really sorts out the visitors. It takes a while & is steep enough. With the crowds it is such a struggle to get through the single line of viewing inside the palace but at least you get a chance to venture outside in the courtyards at various points. We spent an hour just going through the palace. I took lots more photos of this amazing place & cannot upload all of them into this blog.

Next, we head to the coast to the very ritzy Cascais where we pull over next to an old fortress, now converted into a luxury restaurant overlooking the ocean. This area has a weekly problem with the high winds here & the enormous sand dunes where the roads can be made impassable withing an hour. They have the required engineering plant permanently sited here. We can see it is a very popular surfing beach too, but the waves aren’t good today.

Moving forward we head into the centre of Cascais (Historico sector) where we have 2hours of free time. I walked to the bay, then around the Citadel, passed through the large expensive yacht marina, then the Old Quarter & back again (long walk & I believe the only one from the bus that did it). Mario was really impressed. Most of the bus went for a late lunch & sat for the entire 2hrs. On my walk I saw the famous single house, next to the marina & shown frequently on Instagram & Pinterest (Casa De Sao Bernardo) where, they have their own private beach (middle right photo below) & a parked Aston Martin coupe in the yard (super expensive house). Also, I saw in the adjacent marina carpark with Bentley’s & Rolls Royce cars. Whew!!

When the 2hrs were up we headed back towards Lisbon (getting late), but we pass through another exclusive beach area called Estoril where the world-famous soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo is currently building his huge home there. This is when Mario provides a great story from WW2. Portugal was a neutral country during WW2 & that gave sanctuary to thousands of refugees & also an in-depth spy network of opposing sides. The famous hotel, Palacio Estoril Hotel, still a current hotel was a vibrant non-stop lively establishment where the upper class resided or visited frequently. The place to be seen. Ian Fleming (author & creator of James Bond) was himself a spy there & befriended a Russian spy nicknamed ‘Tricycle’ due to the concept he may have been working for 3 networks (USA, UK & Russia). He based this Russian as his James Bond after the war. Estoril had a great port & was a superb location to still be connected to the world, neutrally of course. After the war, the hotel did some renovations to bring it up to their required high standard. Flooring & walls were replaced or relocated, etc only to find a myriad of cables travelling through certain sections of the hotel with no-one knowing who, why or how they were done without anyone knowing. It remains a mystery today but obviously; the spy networks were working overtime. LOL!!

Lisbon is now only 30mins away, so it was a good-bye to all especially Phillip & Mario once we reached our set meeting point again. Some of us gave these wonderful gentlemen a generous tip which gave them much surprise & smiles. An American lady, Christine was really the only one I managed to have time & conversations with. Some people just won’t communicate or give you the time of day, but I push it as their loss. With that I found a small restaurant for a good meal, a beer & headed up to my quaint little unit ready for a free day in Lisbon.

28/10/25 – My Lisbon Free Day

With a great sleep in & no set plans today I found a great little brekky place at my corner block where I was treated to a warm welcome & a table outside on the street platform (deck). Once I sat down people started to stream in & next it was full. Such is the power of me. Lol!! Also, the pricing wasn’t bad here too.

I saw a bit of the bay area the other day, so I headed up the main avenue linking the old quarter to the new area. This is called Av. Da Liberdade however, the locals call this Liberty Avenue, which I think resembles Paris Av. Des Champs – Elysees with its extra-wide tree lined street, nature strips & multi-walkway pavements & service roads. This renaming came around when the Portuguese Army with the help of tens of thousands of citizens peacefully revolted against the governing dictator (Salazar) on 25^th April 1974. The citizens used carnations & placed them into the rifle barrels of the soldiers to maintain their peace action. It was all successful by the end of the day. Portugal changed for the better. Liberty Avenue is high end shopping & is so wide that between the building fronts it would be 120m distance (photo shows the medium strip between the roadways). At the northern junction of this avenue is a major roundabout where centrally is the magnificent Marques De Pombal Monument of a powerful leader in the 1700s. An impressive monument. From my hotel, this is a 2klm walk.

With nothing around this area to view out of the ordinary I headed back towards the bay area to seek out more sights & find a layback area to watch the Lisbon day life. Passing down the other side of this expansive avenue I came across another brilliant statue depicting an angel praising the brave soldier & with the help of 2 strong male humans supporting the soldier in his efforts. Well, that’s my interpretation. What is yours? Down at the bay area I embraced the culture straight away of peace & harmony with the Arco da Rua Augusta like it’s Lisbon’s Arc de Triomphe & another monument in the Placa do Comercio.

After a while I came across Espressolab Baixa which was a brilliant café & with good pricing & such a great ambience. I sat there for quite a while until I thought best to move on. I wanted to get better toothpaste than what I had & out of the blue I found this supermarket that had been hidden the whole time I was here. Not shown on Google Maps & nothing like it around my unit area. I was also able to get my protein bars & drinks for later today & tomorrow before my flight. The toothpaste was also a lot cheaper than the pharmacy store stock. You have to be so aware of the pricing especially when the Australian dollar is doing so poorly.

Coming out of the store, I walked straight into the deluge of teeming rain & with hardly any overhead covering around but a few of us ‘huddled’ together under a very small canopy. I should have looked at the forecast more closely. Didn’t pack my raingear. Der!! The slightest easing forced me to move on & surprisingly I thought I would have been soaked more by the time I got back to my unit. It was a lot of rain in that time. Thankfully, I knew the underground train station & subway connection to both sides of my street & close to my hotel. Now to get my clothes air dried before I start packing for my flight tomorrow to Dublin. I started to write this blog & do my flight check-in with TAP Airlines. Such a breeze. The trick is, to do my train connections well tomorrow to get me to the airport. It’s a bit tricky here in downtown Lisbon at first glance, but I’ll work it out.

I’ll end my Blog #18 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be my journey to Dublin. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.