Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Day 2 (Chicago to Minnesota)

Another eerily empty space

As noted in the previous entry, my plans to drive a rental car from the suburbs (exurbs, really) to Union Station were thwarted by lack of availability of rental cars and the use of car service was dismissed because, well, I'm a tight-fisted accountant. And because there was another excellent alternative. Mom lives not to far from the last stop on a Metra commute rail line that happens to terminate at Union Station, as opposed to some of the other Metra lines that terminate at Ogilvie Transportation Center which is a few blocks from Union Station. So instead of paying $220-285 for car service, one of Mom's neighbors kindly offered to drive us to the train where we paid a whopping $16 for both of us to ride in air conditioned comfort. It took about 90 minutes as it made all stops since it was in the middle of the day, but was a convenient alternative. And it ended up dropping us off two tracks from the one where we would depart later on the Empire Builder.

Mom relaxing in the lounge

Our sleeping car tickets granted us access to the Metropolitan Lounge. While it doesn't have as many features as an airline lounge, it did have a few snacks, free wifi, and, most importantly, comfortable places to sit and clean bathrooms (always key). We found a quiet place on the second floor that was nearly empty (funny how everyone crams into places as soon as they get in the lounge and don't bother looking for more space) and camped there for about 90 minutes until it was time to board.

The Great Hall at Union Station

The boarding process was a bit chaotic. Initially, everyone queued in one rather long line and then a rather loud employee started pulling some people into a smaller line, but it wasn't clear to all what that was about. It turns out it was for those in sleeper cars, but it seemed odd that there weren't stanchions, ropes and signs indicating which line people should be in. But nevertheless we made it on board. Quite a few people had paper tickets but hadn't printed out the part with the bar code that was to be scanned in boarding, which slowed the process down. We had checked in on the app and so it had the bar code but, oddly, did not indicate which compartment was ours. She directed us to our car (there was only one sleeping car on the section of the train that went to Portland) where we experienced a rather old school process that somehow reminded me of summer camp -- the train car attendant looking us up on a printout on his clipboard. Car 2710, Roomette 9 it was!

The narrow hallway of our sleeper car

We lugged our suitcases up the stairs and onto the second level of the car and found our roomette. Um, it was smaller than expected. The Amtrak website is pretty bad in terms of showing videos of what to expect and so I had looked at various videos on YouTube to try and get a better sense of them. Well, many of them showed that the roomette had a small sink as well as a toilet that was, when the wooden lid was down, the lower of the two steps to the upper bunk. Now, query how awkward this might be if you're traveling with someone else and also whether the room might start to smell like a porta potty. But the convenience factor was undeniable. But our room did not have that. We had two very narrow stairs that somewhat doubled as storage/shelves during the day, but that was about it. There was not much legroom between the two seats facing each other, either, and neither of us are at all tall. There was a very narrow (maybe four inches) closet to hang things, but no room to store suitcases, so I had to lug them downstairs again. (We realized later that a normal size rollaboard could juuuuust squeeze underneath the seat, though it obviously would not be accessible when those seats were converted to a bed.) BUT with the door closed, we were allowed to take our masks off and breathe freely, so there was that.

Some first impressions of the cabin can be found in this video:

Our room was at the tail end of the car, which was also the last car on the train. When we walked out into the hallway, we could look at the rails behind us out the back window, which was both cool and a bit dizzying when the train was under full speed. Shortly after I stopped filming the video below, a train came whooshing by the other way on the other track and scared the daylights out of me. Wish I'd caught that, too.

Viewing Columbus out the back window

We passed through northern Illinois and into Wisconsin. When I lived in Milwaukee, I had taken the Hiawatha train from Milwaukee to Chicago many times, but I'd never been on the rails going west from Milwaukee, so that was a new experience. We went through Columbus, Wisconsin which was where my parents had lived when they were newlyweds, so she enjoyed seeing it from the rails. (My Dad was a huge train freak, so he would have really enjoyed this trip or even videos from it were he still alive. She recalls that he often went into Columbus just to watch the trains pass through.)

A couple hours after we departed Chicago, a dining car attendant came through to take dinner reservations. Like access to the Metropolitan Lounge, all meals were included in our fares, including a complimentary alcoholic beverage at dinner. I was very pleasantly surprised by the dining experience. I learned later that the entrees were frozen, but we both enjoyed our meals (I had the salmon, Mom the steak -- you can see the other options in the menu). They even had fresh flowers on the table and tablecloths, though the plates were plastic. We returned to our cabin more than full and with no real ability to work off that food in the next day, alas.

We stopped somewhere (can't recall) long enough to step off the train for a few minutes and to capture the sun setting. Nice end to the first day on the rails. Though a night in the top bunk was yet to come....

Planes, Trains and Automobiles -- Day 1: EWR-ORD

Of all the legs of the journey, one would think that getting to Chicago by air from New Jersey should be the easy one. But one must update one's assumptions when dealing with COVID and a bunch of other weird factors that have arisen because of it. Take, for example, the assumption that rental cars and car service are plentiful and cost-effective. That was, apparently, soooo 2019.

Kim and I were both flying out on the same day -- she to Arizona, me to Chicago -- but on flights separated by about five hours. It didn't really make sense to drive her to the airport, drive home, and then catch a car service later. I could just go early and work at the Admirals Club so we might as well both take car service (getting an Uber or Lyft in the early morning hours in greater metropolitan Bedminster is not a sure thing). So I opened the car service app and had a temporary loss of mandibular control when I saw that the estimate was $220. Um, excuse me? It's normally around $90. Tried another provider. "How does $285 sound?" Are you kidding me? 

And thus was triggered the first of several adjustments to my itinerary. (To all who know me and may have read other blog postings, it should be clear that I am a tight-fisted accountant, which may explain this and other modifications.) Since Kim's flight left at 7 AM, I decided that I would drive, drop her off, and then park in the [gasp] remote parking area. Yes, the one accessed via bus and not the AirTrain. But it was $15 less per day or a total of about $238 for the time we were away. Which would be enough for car service one way, apparently. (I'm sure there are other privately operated remote lots that would have been less, but I didn't have the time/desire to deal with that.) 

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. First, the technology worked well. I had printed out the reservation that had a bar code as a backup, but it wasn't needed. The license plate was scanned, it found a match with my reservation, and the gate immediately lifted. I was impressed. I found an empty space within the lot near one of the bus stops without much difficulty and had no sooner found my face mask (required on the bus per bus stop signage) than the bus pulled up. It took 12:37 to get from that bus stop to my terminal (yes, of course I timed it). Assuming it takes the same amount of time for the return trip (it will probably be more because the bus will have to stop at two other terminals, but play along with me), that would be a savings of about $9.50 per minute on the bus. Not bad. Not to mention that often it may take that long to get an AirTrain from the terminal to the P4 parking garage for daily parking that was the alternative.

I quickly passed through TSA (so glad to have TSA Pre-Check as the regular line was crazy long) and made my way to the Admirals Club. It was, um, different than what I am used to, having been to that very club many times in the past. I rolled in around 7:15 AM, which is when there should have still been quite a few business travelers waiting for flights. Except that they weren't. Initially, I was one of a whopping two people in the business/work/desk area, and then the other guy left. I decided to get a cup of coffee and realized I was the only guest in the ENTIRE CLUB. It remained that way for at least 90 minutes. It was one of the most bizarre things I have experienced. Like some weird dream or scifi thing where you are the sole survivor of an apocalypse. But for the friendly and helpful staff that I eventually stumbled upon. 

Cuz everybody's crazy 'bout the sharp dressed man

The flight itself was uneventful, other than the weird excitement I got by a man sitting in my row who was actually dressed up. Nice tailored and pressed dress pants, tasseled loafers and a nice shirt. I had no idea how much I'd missed seeing a well-dressed man!

The last leg of the day's journey was different because of, once again, the car situation. My plan had been to pick up a rental car, drive it to my Mom's place in the suburbs, drive us both into Chicago the following day and drop Mom off at Union Station while I continued to return the rental at the Loop location and then reconnect with Mom at Union Station. A bit complicated, but a good plan in theory. Except there were zero rental cars available at O'Hare. Zero. At all of the major rental car companies. Um, what? So then I looked at the car service situation. How does $220 sound? $285? Literally the same estimates quoted for service in New Jersey. Hmmm.... So Mom picked me up at the airport and we made our way home.

And that was Day 1. 

Because ORD.... It doesn't get old....

Planes, Trains and Automobiles -- Overview

In this era of continuing COVID, I began to get restless. It was clear that planning a vacation to Europe was not a good idea quite yet, but I was getting restless. And then I saw an article about roomettes on Amtrak and the tumblers of my mind began to turn with possibilities. 

I finally came up with both a plan and an accomplice -- I mean, a traveling companion. Or two. In a nutshell, I would fly to Chicago, pick up my Mom and, together, board the Empire Builder train to Washington State. Once there, we would more or less go our separate ways. I would drive her to meet a childhood friend of hers and my wife would join me to spend time with a good friend in the tri-cities of eastern Washington.

While I have taken a long distance train before between southern California and Chicago via two different routes, it was quite a while ago. I was a student at the time and was most assuredly not in a sleeping car and didn't think I had enough money to go to even the cafe car for a bite, let alone the dining car. So I had used the remainder of the balance on my card at the cafeteria at college to stock up on crackers, granola bars, juice boxes and the like, packed them into my backpack and probably looked a bit like a vagrant as I munched away. 

The long haul trains are also much different than either the allegedly "high speed" Acela (nothing like real high speed trains in Europe and Japan, my other points of reference) or the regional trains. For example, the Acela has relatively comfortable seats that make working on one's laptop convenient, especially as there is free (albeit sometimes spotty) WiFi. The regional trains, on the other hand (based on trips to DC, Boston and Vermont using them) are pretty down-at-the heels, not nearly as comfortable (even in business class), though they do offer WiFi at times.

Anyway, enough people were curious about the train and sleeping car situation, that I thought I'd craft a few blog entries to cover the trip and embed some videos as it's hard to explain it all in a quick conversation.

The map below may be helpful to understand the train portion of the journey. Two trains leave from Chicago and split into two in Spokane. We were the lower branch.

Source: Road and Rail Pictures

 

08/31/19 - Saturday, Nice

The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).

Ye Olde Pen Shoppe

There were no servers in the restaurant when we entered. There was, however, a guy in the kitchen in the back who was clearly trying to prep for the regular restaurant hours (the restaurant was clearly not open to the public for breakfast or even coffee at this time). Inevitably, when hotel guests had questions, they sought that poor guy out who got more frustrated with each request as this was clearly not his job. Turns out it was the job of the hotel clerk who finally wandered in. She added a few more croissants to the basket (apparently, three was the perfect amount to set out at any given point in time). My wife asked if there were eggs as there was an electric egg boiling machine and, probably 15 minutes, she finally brought the eggs out. I don’t know if these machines are different in France, but this one took well over 15 minutes, though apparently the eggs were good. The coffee was less good – I think the packets of instant Nescafe up in the room were far better. But hey, a free breakfast is a free breakfast and the croissant and yogurt were at least enough to get me on my way.

Cheese so special it is roped off -- VIP cheese

 We did a bit of shopping that morning. No, not fancy things that one might associate with the high fashion of Paris or something. No, we hit places such as Zara and H&M so that we had a few more cheap t-shirts and things to wear in the hot weather. What’s interesting to me is that the stores have different merchandise in Europe than in the US so we ended up with some things that may be a bit unique. My favorite find was a bizarre white t-shirt with what looked like a frame around some artwork of a woman with a crazy red hairstyle which was then accented with the a few sequins of the same color.  Totally NOT my style, but hey, EUR 5!

I can't unsee this, er, "art"

Some of the interesting art

We went to the Musee d’Arts Modernes et d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC) which has some, er, interesting exhibits and also happened to be very close to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around and enjoying the city and had a lovely dinner at another restaurant recommended by a friend – Citrus.

8/30/19 Friday, Arrival and Nice

We departed Newark late on Friday night on La Compagnie, which promotes itself as a boutique airline. They fly direct between Newark and Paris and, during the summer months, also from Newark to Nice. While it’s nice not to have to connect, what’s even better is that part of them being a boutique airline is that they only offer business class, so there are only about 70 passengers on the entire plane. That makes boarding easier, overhead storage space much more available and, obviously, there is a better class of service and sleeping in the skies in business class.

The planes are a bit old and the seats are not true lay-flat seats but the wedgie ones that are flat but angled to the ground — like Lufthansa’s old business class, if you’re familiar. But I will take that any day compared to flying in Economy, especially on the overnight flight.  The flight didn’t leave until 11:30, which is already way after my bedtime and landed at around 2 PM local time in Nice, which was helpful in terms of arriving at the hotel and a room actually being ready versus having to leave your bags at the hotel and wandering around the city like a sleep-deprived zombie with bed head.

The hotels available with only a week’s notice on the last big weekend of summer were, well, limited. At least if you wanted to stay on any sort of budget. My goal with the 20 countries/region thing is to do so in as immersive a way as possible, so trying not to default to a western (okay, American) bubble and just choose a Starwood (it’s still hard for me to say Marriott) property where everything will be predictable. No, the goal is a bit of unpredictability and a reasonable price.  This generally equates to three or maybe four star places that are local where I am more likely to either need or be able to practice my local language skills and where I could have more genuine interactions with real people.

I booked Le Geneve Hotel via Booking.com (since our stay just over two weeks ago, it has changed its name to Hotel Le G, oddly enough). It had user ratings of 8.7 out of 10, was said to be convenient to the Old Town of Nice and was only EUR 155 including breakfast.  I was a bit surprised that when I booked, Booking.com sent a follow-up saying that since I was spending over EUR 100/night, they’d throw in a taxi to the hotel from the airport.  Wait, what? Don’t think Starwood has ever offered me that. Yep. I gave them my details and sure enough, there was a driver with a sign and my name. He led us out to a nice, new black van and proceeded for the entire trip to essentially not hear us asking for him to turn up the air, so we arrived a bit more hot, sweaty and disheveled-feeling than typical overnight flight dishevelment. It was also a bit confusing to know how/whether to tip him since we had no idea how much such a taxi ride would have been, how he was being compensated etc. We gave him EUR 5, which was no doubt more than enough given how little tipping is used in Europe (at least not at the 20% type range as in the US) which was, we assume, still much less expensive than a taxi from the airport to the hotel.

When we walked into the hotel, which was just off of Place Garibaldi (a nice square with fountains, of course), what first hit me was how stinkin’ hot it was in the small reception area. The clerk was seated behind a small counter and had a couple of fans blowing on her and still looked miserable. It was around 90 F outside that day. Usually the lobby of a hotel is its best foot forward to make a positive first impression, so the lack of a seating area and A/C did not bode well for our stay. As we trudged up the stairs (don’t think I ever saw an elevator, though fortunately we were only one floor up), I was thinking of what my wife was going to say about my hotel selection. And I couldn’t imagine how I could’ve missed the A/C part as that was always one of my criteria.

As the clerk opened the door for us, I was relieved to discover that indeed, I had not overlooked the A/C part as the in-room unit was humming along and the room was noticeably cooler than the hallway or lobby.  Whew! It was small, but had a mini-fridge, a tea kettle for instant coffee and tea and even a small safe. It’d be just fine.

After taking 30 minutes to cool off, change our clothes and catch-up on what we’d missed during the flight (the WiFi was fast and free), we headed out to explore a bit. Google Maps on my phone was a bit confusing. It was clear we were indeed near the Old Town, but we ended up wandering down Promenade du Paillon through a park with some interesting sculptures and playground equipment. The delightful surprise was, towards the end, there was a large stone tiled area with jet fountains that would periodically turn on. On a day as hot as that one, children were laying around on the wet stone and, when the jets would turn on, would just squeal in delight and glee and commence running around and through the jets and having a wonderful time. Just pure joy.

The Old Town was lovely and my first real introduction to the narrow streets of many Provencal towns. Shops selling lavender, Provencal fabrics and souvenirs were interspersed with butcher shops, restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Tourists abounded, yet it retained a sense of calm, though admittedly it was a Friday rather than the weekend. We had dinner at Bar du Coin, which a friend had said had the best pizza in the world, so we had to check it out. It was good, but I’ll take a Chicago deep dish any time to that. Nevertheless, all the walking around, jetlag and lots of carbs put me into a quick sleep that night.

Introduction to the Provence Trip (and related entries)

Like most of the trips I have taken abroad, I approached a vacation in Provence with misconceptions and ignorance. But that, of course, is precisely why I want to travel — to literally and figuratively expand my horizons and see a perspective that is different than what I have had before and at least start to remedy that ignorance.

I have been to France before, but only Paris and a brief road trip between Paris and Geneva, Switzerland through the Bordeaux wine-growing region. But I am married to someone who lived in Geneva and thought nothing of popping down to Provence for a long weekend and couldn’t fathom that I had never been before. And so it wound up on my list of the 20 countries or regions that I want to visit before I turn 60 (it is number four, following Romania, Lithuania and Portugal).

As with those other trips, I started by trying to learn the language to the extent reasonably possible and to read up on the country. I had originally thought that we would be visiting in May, so I began with Level 1 of Pimsleur’s French in December so that I would peak at the right time as each of the five levels involves 30 lessons that are designed to be completed on a consecutive, daily basis. I had taken two years of French in college so thought it would all come back to me. What came back instead is a realization that I probably hadn’t learned as much in the first place as I thought I had. But at least I had some basic starting point.

I made good progress in the courses and finished as scheduled in April, but in the interim was told by someone who used to live in Geneva and would be accompanying me on this trip (which is to say, my wife) that May was absolutely NOT the right time to go to Provence. Oh. But by that time I was already in level 3. So I finished it and peaked early, thinking this extra time would allow me to keep improving my skills and do more reading. Yeah, that didn’t really happen, because then a German colleague joined us at our office and I decided I would focus on German on a daily basis and just add in a couple days a week such as the weekend where I would work on my French. Yeah, no….

I also didn’t do nearly as much reading on the culture and history of the country as I had done for the other countries, which is crazy since there is sooooo much more written on the culture and history of France than any of those other three countries.  I did, however, read several books about the experiences of various individuals who lived in Provence, bought a vacation home there, had a job there etc. They were somewhat helpful, but I did myself a disservice by not being as focused as I should have been. During the trip, I also finished a book about some of the folk stories and lore of the country that brought some of the regions alive — but after I had been to most of them. Doh!

All that to say, I started out even more ignorant than I had for the other three countries, though at least I had a French speaker traveling with me who had been there many times before. Which was both helpful and frustrating at times — for both of us, no doubt.

The original idea was that my wife was was going to create an itinerary for the trip, since she’d been there before, knew where to stay and what to see and the like. As the time grew closer, though, I became less confident that such an itinerary was being formed. So I went online and started ordering travel guides and a map. When they arrived, I marked places that seemed interesting and I noticed she was poring over the books as well. I wasn’t sure if that was a reflection of her trying to find ideas, trying to incorporate my interests into her master plan or something else. She had been with me on the trip to Portugal and had seen how I had organized it and so I assumed that she would be doing something similar and I should just back off and let her do so and not interfere because, obviously, I had never been to Provence before so how would I know how it was done? And she clearly had done this many times by all the stories she told of dining under the stars at a small hotel where they just brought out local wine and you laughed and drank and had wonderful food and magical experiences. Give me some of that, please!

As it turned out, there wasn’t a master plan or any type of itinerary (most assuredly not of the day-by-day variety captured in Word as is my wont). We didn’t even have hotels booked for each night, which is something I didn’t realize until we were already there. I suppose it should have been a clue about a week before we left when she asked if I would handle finding a hotel in Nice for the first two nights. Wait, in a week? In August? Over a US holiday weekend? The last weekend before French children return to school? Yep.

At the same time, I am (I think) smart enough to realize that my way isn’t always the best way and, yes, I’m a bit uptight, so maybe a more flexible approach would be a good thing. So we sallied forth.

What became clear rather quickly in reading those books, and later on the ground, is that I didn’t really understand where Provence was located. When I thought of Provence, I thought of lavender fields because of all the photos I had seen showing that and, well, the advertising of L’Occitane en Provence, one of my preferred makers of hand creams and other things. I somehow didn’t realize that it also included the French Riviera.

There are six different areas called departments in Provence:  Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhone, Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes. The travel guide that was our primary reference didn’t include Hautes-Alpes, so it is perhaps no surprise that we didn’t make it up there, though we did hit the other five.

One of the other references I had purchased was an old school paper map of the area, which turned out to be so large that one needed an entire table on which to spread it to see anything, so not great for planning on-the-fly. Our rental car fortunately had GPS (which turned out to be very helpful since mobile reception was spotty along the way, thus frustrating the use of Google Maps or Waze), but GPS only works as well as the destinations you feed it and cannot overcome one’s failure to plan. Perhaps as a result of that, the route we actually took and where we stayed were not as, um, efficient as we might otherwise have chosen. Good thing we had unlimited kilometers on the rental!

At some point in time I will figure out how to create a map of the journey and will post it here. You will then see the somewhat circuitous route we took, which tracks along with not having a master plan or a good, small map.

While we did visit five of the six departments, we spent more time in some areas than others, which is my cue to say that now I know where to focus for the next visit. Except that there are 16 other countries/regions that need to be knocked off in 12 years, which doesn’t leave a lot of time/room for repeats and, essentially, do-overs.

Winding up/down in Sintra

The last stop on our trip (other than the final night in Lisbon, where there wasn't anything post-worthy) was to Sintra, which is just outside Lisbon. It is a quaint and rather touristy place, but for good reason -- there are several palaces and castles and related grounds in the area, as well as being located in Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais which provides some additional recreational activities.

We took the train from Braga to Sintra via Lisbon's Oriente station, which took about four hours in total, so we arrived in Sintra mid-afternoon on Friday.  Our hotel was only 650 meters from the train station, but somehow Google Maps thought it would be fun to take a short cut. I've noticed Google Maps doesn't seem to take into account hills when plotting out pedestrian routes and this was no exception. It took us down some narrow streets, at the bottom of which it then directed us to climb some stairs. And climb. And climb. All while carrying our luggage of course.

We stayed at the Sintra Boutique Hotel which was fine but nothing spectacular, though our room did have a view of the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, which was pretty much right across the street. The also brought a lot of people into the area, but the room was surprisingly quiet when the windows were closed. It also had the bonus (as compared to the wine barrels and the pousada) of having a coffee/espresso machine in the room, which was immediately put to use by Kimberley. The helpful woman at the front desk of the hotel recommended that, given that we were starting a weekend when the town is overrun with tourists, that we knock off the National Palace and another place I had on my list -- Quinta da Regaleira -- that afternoon and then hit Palacio Nacional da Pena first thing in the morning as the lines can get quite lengthy.

As was the case with much of the trip, with gorgeous weather outside and since we have already between the two of us seen many castles and palaces, we didn't elect to wait in line to tour the National Palace. Instead, we just took a few pics from the outside and headed on. What's most notable about the National Palace are the two white peaks rising out of the building side-by-side, which are actually twin chimneys in the kitchen.

It will surprise no one who has read the blogs so far (or who has toured Portugal) that the road leading to the Quinta da Regaleira was steep and windy. And once inside, there were even more hills and stairs. The whole thing seemed to be a series of terraced gardens and overlooks with castle-like points interspersed throughout, each of which had a circular staircase inside taking you up to the next level of the terraces.

 

There were also small ponds/lakes, caves and grottos. Kind of fascinating. And a good leg workout. One of the articles on Sintra or maybe it was a guide book noted that it was like a fairyland or a place where you would expect a hobbit to appear at any time and I couldn't agree more.

 


The next morning we took the advice to arrive at the Pena Palace early to be there when the doors opened at 9:30. There was a bus that left pretty much in front of our hotel at 9:15 but the helpful receptionist at the hotel had also noted that you could taken an Uber (which she charmingly pronounced YOU-bur), so we tried that out. We watched the driver's approach to us on the app with a bit of apprehension as he seemed to be taking a very circuitous route to get to the hotel. We learned later that there are a bunch of one-way streets in the area. So after he picked us up, we ended up doubling back and coming nearly to the hotel again as we ascended. And ascended. And ascended. Very narrow, winding roads and I am glad we didn't think this would have made a good hike! We arrived at the entrance around 9:15 and the line was already really backed up. Kimberley waited in entry line while I went up to get in a different line for tickets. There was a regular ticket booth, but also a series of three kiosks you could use. Except two of the three kiosks were non-functional. The line was really slow and Kimberley was nearly to the gate when I finally got my shot at the kiosk only to discover (after a failed attempt) that it would only take debit cards or a credit card with a PIN.  Doh! Fortunately I actually did have my debit card with me and it worked like a charm.

Once inside, there was a long -- you guessed it -- steep road up to the palace. You could pay EUR 3 per person for a bus transfer to the top, but what's the fun in that (especially if you're a tight-fisted accountant and you're already nearly used to all the hill climbing)? So up we went. And I think walking up made for a better experience as you caught glimpses of the palace through the trees in certain spots.

It really is quite a stunner, particularly with the bold colors and all of the interesting details. They also had a variety of tiles, both flat and three-dimensional and one of the latter seemed to be some type of war scene or coat of arms. And there were amazing views of the area extending to the sea.

 


After we had a coffee at the cafe, we headed out on the trails through the surrounding woods, including up to the High Cross -- a cross at the highest point of the property, as the name might suggest.

One the way down, we took a sort of off-road trail to try to get closer to a stone figure we saw from the palace but didn't seem to be on the regular trails. We found it, but on the descent back to the regular trail, I wound up skidding on loose dirt and falling on a combination of my rear and my right leg that was bent fully back -- the right way, to be clear, but not a position where all of your body weight should be on the joint in that position. Ummm.... Was able to get up but was in excruciating pain. And, oh yeah, still had to hobble down the hills on cobblestone paths. They were less than charming on the way down in my state. I made it, though, and was able to also hobble with suitcase back to the train station (not the scenic route with stairs this time) and we headed to Lisbon for our final night.

The only thing I wish we had had time to see in Sintra was Castelo dos Mouros which, as its name suggests, is a moorish castle. I had read about it and thought it would be interesting but the receptionist had noted that there wasn't much to see and you could see it from Pena Palace. Um, maybe we could have seen it from a particular view if we had done the tour of the Pena Palace, but otherwise didn't see it other than from the city center where you could see it high on the hills, but not close enough to get a good picture.