Nice Way Sintra

Portugal – August 2021

After a short last night in Porto, I catch a Flixbus down to Lisbon. But this isn’t my final destination for today. From Oriente train station I take the Sintra Line all the way to the last stop. The train ride takes me across the city and out to the western suburbs. It takes about an hour and is a popular day trip for visitors to Portugal’s capital. However, as I have plenty of time on my hands and am in no mood to rush, I decided to stay here for two nights.

From Sintra station I follow the route to my hostel which Google Maps suggests. Up until the time I am writing these lines I thought that it was a short cut, but now I am not so sure about that anymore. As everywhere in Portugal, the area is very hilly, and the road takes me down way to the bottom of a valley just to go uphill again after a turn. Another hill later I arrive at the “Nice Way Hostel Sintra”.

Fabio, who runs the hostel, greets me at the front desk and shows me around the 3-floor building. He grants me the last lower bunk in my dorm and wishes me a pleasant stay. Now it’s time for me to video call my friends from school. After around an hour of chatting, the Wi-Fi starts to run slow, and I head down to the cozy garden to see if it works better there. I find myself a seat underneath the ivy-covered patio and we continue talking. When the call is over, I join the girls sitting in the corner just left from me and a great night begins.

There is Chloe from Ireland, Hannah who’s Irish and Singaporean, Clara from Austria and Hilke from Holland. We immediately find common ground as we’re all women in our 20s travelling alone and share many of the same struggles. Teresa from Germany joins the group and invites everybody to a game of Ligretto. Clara and I instantly agree and looking at the blank face of the others realize that this must be a German game. And so we get to explaining it to everyone. Soon the rest of the guests and volunteers join us at the long table.

We take advantage of the cheap beer and Sangria and when Brittany from New York tells Hannah and I about the free welcome drink, Fabio brings us a glass of Ginja (Portuguese cherry liquor). There are great conversations about lots of different topics taking place all along the table and suddenly it’s 3 am. I was originally hoping that I’d get a good rest here, so that I’d be ready for my long weekend in Lisbon. So much for that.

I sleep in the next day and after a stroll around the very beautiful village of Sintra, head up to the park around Vila Sassetti. My first goal of the day is the Castelo dos Mouros towering high above the village and I have quite a bit of altitude to cover. The walk in the park is though steep very nice, as there are lots of beautiful, tropical plants to look at. The second part of the climb leads through forest and at some point, I even meet some rock climbers.

Arriving at the top, I realize that this isn’t actually the top at all. The castle is still higher up on yet another hill, but having made it this far, I’m not going to quit now. And standing on the highest tower, I do not regret it, as the views from the are absolutely stunning. But there is more: Even further up the hill, there is the Pálacio Nacional da Pena, a gorgeous red and bright yellow building, peaking through the forest surrounding it. Feeling like nothing can stop me now, I swiftly carry on, up the next hill.

I get lost in the humungous park at some point and when I finally reach the palace, have absolutely no interest in joining the crowd of people queueing to enter. Instead, I decide to start my decent back to the village and stop at some viewpoints on the way. I put on my current audiobook and continue walking. As I sit down next to the lakes at the very end of the park, I think about the barbeque that Fabio told me we’d have tonight and I cannot wait to get back to the hostel.

As I arrive, I am told by one of the volunteers that we won’t have a BBQ, because only few people signed up for it. Slightly disappointed, I already have a solution in mind. And so I head to the Bengali restaurant to get some delicious Daal and Naan bread. Some other people were having it last night and I get hungry just thinking about it now. A slightly more quite night than the last one follows, nevertheless I find myself in bed just before midnight.