Pena Palace

Another adventure on Lisbon’s urban railway network. This time we are departing for Rossio station the opposite end of the square from our hotel’ We found a nice bar for breakfast right next tot he station. The train for Sintra was very busy, we found ourselves in the midst of a group of young Italian tourists.
On arrival at Sintra station we transfer to a bus that will take us up to the Pena Palace. The bus is also very busy but we are lucky enough to get seats. This bus is followed by another bus to take us from the entrance to the palace gardens up to the palace itself.
Today is the first day it is quite cool, and there is the early threat of rain which materialises while we are touring the palace. We had a snack lunch in the palace then adjourned back down to the bus stop. It is raining quite heavily by the time we are in the queues for the two buses to get us back to Sintra station.
This time the train back to Lisbon is not busy and so we have a leisurely if slow return to Lisbon, the journey takes about 45 minutes, and is almost entirely through densely populated suburbs with many large blocks of apartments. It is not a particularly scenic journey.
On our return to Lisbon we take one of the funicular up to a viewpoint looking towards the castle.
We go to a wine bar next to the hotel, it is one of the oldest pastry shops in Lisbon, having been established in 1829. Later we have dinner in an Italian restaurant near Rossio station. On our return to the hotel I decided to stop off in a wine bar next to the restaurant which it turns out is possibly one of the more expensive establishments in Lisbon.