Sintra

I forgot to post pics of our last day.  Normally we try and take it easy before we fly home, but we hadn't taken the day trip out to the city of Sintra and didn't want to miss out. It's only 40 mins by train and takes you to a cute little town, with huge castles and palaces up on a huge hilltop. We ignored common sense and walked/hiked/sweated our way to the top. We opted to not go to the huge gaudy palaces and instead spent hours wandering around Regaleira Palace. It was designed by a rich wierdo who was into the occult, masonry, templars, alchemy and all kinds of other esoteric things. The gardens had secret tunnels and all kinds of interesting symbolism. It was almost like bizzaro disneyland. I loved it! We hiked even further to the old Moorish castle. The views were fantastic.

When we got back to Lisbon, we still had time to go to the beach for an afternoon swim and sunset.

Sevilla

The last stop in Spain before we need to be back to Lisbon for our flight home was Sevilla. We found a big apartment on airbnb for ourselves for three nights and then one night in a nice hostel. The heat here is nuts. We rocked it in the AC each day from around 2-8. No point in even being outside. The city shuts down (except for the tourists) for a reason.  It doesn't really get nice until around 9 pm. The city is very easy going besides the heat. We were recommended a nice local area called Alameda de Hercules to hang out in, and we've gone there every night. Cheap drinks, lots of people hanging out, one night we saw an African band play. The kids stay out and play on the playgrounds until like 1 in the morning. One night some girl showed up with a baby eagle!

We did the sights each morning before it got too hot. We went to the cathedral: largest in europe and it has Christopher Columbus's tomb. Palace of Spain where we walked in the park and played around with ducks and swans. Went to their contemporary art center that was in a weird old monastery (we picked some limes from their for making drinks at the apt.) We went to the giant wooden Metropol Parasol at night to watch the sun set. It claims to the be the largest wooden structure in the world. It looks really futuristic and out of place. It's only three euro and you get a free glass of wine. The sunset was beautiful, but the view wasn't as good as from the roof of the apartment we were staying in.

On our last day we were tired and were going to just fart around the hostel, but we decided to go the the Alcazar right after we checked in. I was going to skip it because I heard it was just like the Alhambra that we went to in Granada and I can only pay to see so many moorish palaces. I'm so glad I changed my mind. It turns out that they filmed all of the Dorne scenes from Game of Thrones there! I actually liked it much better than the Alhambra. Everything is a little better kept, since the actual king of spain resides there when he is in town. The gardens are some of the best I've ever scene. We sat and read by some trees and a family of peacocks came and hung out by us. Palace life must be amazing.

columbus's tomb

Dorne!

eagle lady