Nothin but love for the Portuguese mountain towns

We planned to go to Sintra on Sunday, a small mountain town on the outskirts of Lisboa. We woke up around 9ish and had breakfast in the hostel which consisted of cereal, bread, different jams and spreads, ham and cheese, green tea and honey (yes!), pineapple juice, and some amazing apples (most likely organic). We had read in one of the guidebooks that the Portuguese have a huge sweet tooth. This was pretty obvious with the numerous "pastalerias" (Port. for bakery) we had seen, but it was also very obvious with the breakfast choices. Among the jams was this one spread that looked like nutella, but it was basically spreadable chocolate. Oh man, bad news. I gave it a sample, it was so good. It makes your bread taste like a donut. Bad bad bad. After breakfast we walked to the Metro, took that to the train station to train it over to Sintra. The weather was gorgeous, lucky us! The train was about 30 min. We detrained in Sintra, a beautiful, very green, mountainous area. It kind of reminded me of Catalina Island with a bit of Colorado-ness to it. There were huge old estates and castle places up in the mountains. The streets were narrow and packed with cute little shops and homes. Love it! We decided to check out one of the major palaces at the top of the mountain...there was el castelo de los mouros and el castelo de pena. We immediately outlawed the Moorish castle and bought tickets to see the 17th century castle of one of the old royal families of Portugal. We grabbed a packed bus to the top of the mountain which was quite the experience. They drive so fast up these steep-ass hills on these narrow cobblestone streets. I don't know how they do it--ya gotta be a pretty talented driver with a pretty powerful engine to drive like that. Not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous during the ride, but it was fun in the end. The ride was about 20 min., we got off and bought tickets to the castelo. Tickets were 6euros...ugh, our money was fading before our eyes. We then waited in line forever to grab a trolley up to the top, but the line was so slow moving that we decided to hike it. It was so steep an exhausting, but the walk was gorgeous. A glorious nature walk, so many old rocks, structures, gardens, and abundant greenery. Oh man, it was so green I can't even tell you. It was starting to become pretty overcast so the moss, grass, and trees seemed to glow. We got to the top after walking for a good 20 min. The castelo is simply stunning. It looks like a fairytale castle, no joke, and it's just chilling there on top of this beautiful mountain overlooking more green, beautiful mountains. Can you even imagine living like that?? The exterior is painted all of these brilliant colors with lots of architecturally stunning moldings and crevices. The architecture, view, etc. was just awesome. Walking the perimeter itself was breathtaking. It started raining a bit so we went inside the castle. It's cool, it's been completely reproduced on the inside to look like how it would have been decorated in the 1800's. It's like a firsthand museum. I mean, it's museum in the actual location, ya know? Hard to explain, but it was awesome. The rooms are gorgeous and ornate (unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures), but just imagine how European kings of the 17th century lived and you'll get a pretty good picture of the beauty of its interior. After awhile at the castelo we hiked back down the mountain to the bus area and took a doubley scary bus ride down the mountain. They drive so fast! It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to drive such a heavy piece of machinery down steep, narrow hills like that. I mean, what if your breaks died? Whatever, I survived. After that we walked around and went into some really cute shops. The rain had stopped but it was still pretty overcast. We went to one really nice store that had some awesome postcards. At another gift shop Courtney bought a rooster shot glass...she had been wanting to buy a souvenir with the Portugal rooster on it that seems to appear everywhere. It's a silly lil rooster, and it's everywhere...I don't understand it, honestly. Should have done my research before arriving, haha. Then we went to lunch at this cute restaurant. Seating was upstairs, and it kind of looked like an old tavern. It had a very low ceiling and all of the walls were this really dark wood, it was like being in a cabin or old dollhouse or something. The tables were these little picnic-like benches. So cute. Our waiter was super nice...let me say, quickly, that people in Portugal are so freaking nice. SOOOO nice. They're always there to help. In Spain, as an American, I always feel like kind of a burden. In Portugal I always felt welcomed, people are just so inviting and friendly. We both ordered sandwiches, mine was a crabmeat sandwich. Not bad, the bread was really good, particularly. I also got an extra perk from a capuccino. After lunch we walked around a bit more. The sun had come out completely so we decided to do some walking. We passed by one of the palaces that's still in use today. Can't remember what it's called. Then we walked down another small slope to the train station. It was beautiful, the trees were awesome, and the views of Sintra from the path in the sun were breathtaking. I got nothing but love for the Portuguese mountain town...who knew they existed there! We took the train back, then the Metro, then walked back to the hostel. Upon arrival we got in bed and took a siesta. We just loved the bed, so comfy, and all of that walking is exhausting. After napping we showered, got ready to go out, etc. Then we went out in search of food. We headed up to the Bairro Alto. It was Sunday, so our options were a bit limited, and we weren't too hungry so we were being a bit picky...we needed to find a place that really sparked our interest to get us to eat there. We finally settled on a restaurant called Stravaganza, an Italian place. I realized that I hadn't eaten Italian food since coming to Europe, weird (there's Italian food all over Spain). We had a slight wait for seating, but the waitstaff was so nice and attentive while we waited. We were seated. Our waitress was super nice and spoke really great English. The restaurant was slightly elegant, the decor was silly, but the menu was pretty fancy. The music was hilarious, a lot of classic rock (Queen, Simon&Garfunkl), 80's (Wham, Madonna), and then random stuff like "YMCA" and Abba. So silly. We ordered another bottle of white wine to split...oh man, another silly romantic thing--Italian restaurant, wine, we're silly people. We split a caprese salad and then split an order of pasta cuz we weren't hungry enough to eat all of those carbs. We got fettuccini w/ pesto sauce which wasn't too bad. The salad was great. Then we ordered dessert--while we were waiting we saw a woman eating this chocolate souffle which looked to die for--so we had to get the souffle. It came, with real vanilla bean gelato on top. Oh man, this souffle was unreal, and on the inside was molten warm chocolate cream. Unbelievable. One of the best desserts I've ever eaten, I kid you not. 50euro later we were out of dinner (I swear money just disappears) around midnight. We planned on going out, but we were just so tired and the wine had definitely brought us down. So we called it an early night and we were asleep by 12:45am. Haha, I swear we're turning into adults. Who knew?