Supergeil Deutsch Blog: Sintra

The next morning we drove to Sintra (3hrs). Sintra is where the Moors had a castle and where the Portuguese Royal Family lived during the height of their reign.

I'm not sure if the middle-eastern influence is real or imagined:

I'd live here:

We found a restaurant on a nice patio and ate delicious food from the grill:

We refueled on cash:

And then Will and I left Russell to his Grad-School work and went to the castles. He didn't have a bad view:

Will and I made it to the Cistern of the Moorish Castle.

As far as castles go, this one looked particularly terrible for the laborers who had to build it. The mountain was steep and the cliffs were numerous. The vegetation was nice though:

We waved to Russell:

I liked all the different flags:

From one castle, we looked upon the other:

It is hard for the camera to capture how high up it felt to be on top of the highest keep:

Will and I walked to the Royal Palace from the Moorish Castle:

Russell accurately described the castle as "A spoiled little kid's caricature of a castle":

The color schemes and construction was somewhat random- but I think it worked.

This wall front and center was made entirely of choral and things from the sea:

I felt like this tile had to be a metaphor for something...

Tile is great:

This bathroom was #1:

And the wallpaper int his room was actually 3d. 3d tile!!!!:

The furniture was incredibly elaborate. Here is a hand-carved chair and table set:

Will and I decided to meet up with Russell to go to this crazy Masonic ritual ground/gardens Russell told us about. The time had gotten away from us, so we ran down the mountain. At this point Will was an expert at running down mountains in normal clothes.

We made it to the gardens before closing:

So the official name is: Quinta da Regaleira. Or Mystic Gardens on some things. or "The Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire".

The names of certain parts within the gardens are: "Threshold to the Gods" and "Initiation Wells". It had a very unique and creepy vibe to it.

Russell told us essentially a really rich and eccentric millionaire paid an architect to design a fantasy garden that loosely had to do with a famous play and masonic/templar imagery.

Here are the pictures from our wander:

Cool swamp with cave behind it:

Will was brave enough:

We entered the cave system behind this fountain:

And then we somehow ended up at the bottom of the Ritual Well. Relatively Deep. Somewhat wet.

Russell wondering:

We had a blast running through the tunnels:

At some points, it would become so dark we'd have to stop and turn our phones' flashlights on. It would be awesome to be a small kid going through the Moorish Castle and then the mystery gardens.