Lost in a forest

Sintra is must-see. It really is. But it pissed me off. First things first: former royal family retreat, an hour away from Lisbon, mountains, castles, palaces.

The Palacio Pena, the really big one, is inside the Parque Pena. I.e., it's in the middle of the woods. The guy at the tourist office told me to go there first because it gets crowded. He told me exactly how to get there and it sounded easy but, with my bad memory and one of the worst tourist maps ever, I went right when I should have gone left and walked waaaay out of the way, finally entering the park through a back entrance. Which should have been fine. The park isn't that big and I had a map. The worst map ever. Most of what was on the map didn't seem to exist in the park, and most of the landmarks in the park weren't on the map. And there was no scale or compass (trust me, north is not always at the top of southern European tourist maps). I thought I was okay because there were signs pointing to the palace. But then the third sign was in between two paths and the pointy part of the arrow had worn off so you couldn't tell which way to go. I ended up trying both (both uphill of course, because that's where castles are--on top of hills) and neither worked.

This story is getting way too long. It was infuriating. I was lost in the woods. I was talking to myself to remain calm. I finally found someone to ask for directions, understood when they were given in Portuguese, found the palace, and calmed down. The views were slightly hidden by the first real clouds I've seen in Portugal, but the whole thing was still pretty impressive. Nice art, nice Portuguese tiles in most of the rooms, even nice bathrooms. And it is pretty cool that it's hidden in the middle of the woods (now that I've stopped hating the woods). Like an enchanted forest. Back in the center of Sintra is the National Palace. Also very nice with more Portuguese tiles, which are one of my new favorite things.

But the real highlight of Sintra was this cat I met. In Spain and Portugal both, you see cats everywhere; you'd think they'd be used to people, but they're usually really skittish. Which is why I was so excited for this little white cat with one blue eye and one green eye. He was so friendly. He rubbed up against my foot and when I pet him he fell down and he was purring and he was playing.... It really doesn't take much with me.