These days are mostly about the routine, finishing certain tasks, and thinking about future steps. To escape the noticeable weight of pure existence, I choose another place for my next “day trip.”
Try to type Sintra in your Instagram. I’m sure that a platter of insta gurlies and boy influencers will appear, just gushing over this small town´s beauty. Well, I´m going to tell you about my time there. I have to say, if it wasn´t for my amazing fellow volunteer Giulia, who joined me, this whole experience would just turn into a pure rollercoaster of disappointment, with a few ups and a lot of downs for sure.
Let me take you back to the day, which already started extremely positively, as I woke up to one of the thickest fogs in my life. I think only Iceland, where I couldn´t see anything in the distance of three meters, beats it. But that won´t stop us!On our way from Almada to Lisbon by ferry, to my pleasant surprise, the weather forecast about a sunny day turned out to be true, as we were released from the foggy embrace. Which begs the question, what kind of humidity/fog issues is Almada facing?
Our train ride was a story of itself. As we departed from the station, I started thinking that I am hallucinating when I heard tambourine sounds somewhere in the distance. Luckily, I´m still sane – what I considered to be a figment of my imagination… unfortunately, for all the passengers, turned out to be one guy with a tambourine, who decided to give a screaming music performance, slowly passing through the corridor until he moved to another carriage. For the future financial advice, I would propose to him, just stay in the same train carriage. Till people pay him to leave and stop singing, I think he would at least double his earnings.
First thing you will see when you step out of Sintra’s train station is a bunch of people with maps, offering you different tours of the city. You cannot escape, they are everywhere. If you are waiting on the bus somewhere in the center, be sure that there will be Tuk-tuk drivers screaming at you, to give you a veeeeery expensive ride instead of an extremely overpriced bus (4 euros per ride).
Is there any solution? I would suggest you two possible options: put your hiker hat on and be ready to walk – walk a lot… or call yourself an Uber. Even if you are just two, it’s still much more affordable than anything else (3€). We decided to combine both of these approaches and walked everywhere, resulting in approximately 17 km (according to Giulia´s step-counting app). The only exception was Pena Palace, where we took a fancy Tesla ride.
So what’s my overall impression of Sintra? In my opinion, it’s a town functioning solely on visitors, who come here tricked by a false narrative of exceptional beauty or whatever. I will say that it’s nice and there are some enjoyable places. On the other hand its soo touristic in the worst way possible: souvenir shops on every corner, as well as someone offering you a tourist service. The sights, which are worth visiting, are so far away from each other, and they made sure that you can´t even properly enjoy them from the outside, forcing you to pay quite a juicy entrance fee. It’s not built in a way for you to just walk around and enjoy it purely by being there.
What put the final nail in the coffin behind this whole day was the headache I got. I guess from everything (too many tourists, noise, and sun???). Don’t ask me… the only thing I knew was that my battery was dead. Maybe it was the first sign of an incoming existential crisis.
With hopeful thoughts of my incoming weekend in Porto, which, fingers crossed, puts me back on the right track… that’s all for today.
