Portugal: The Island of Adventures

35 JMU students and I knew we were traveling to Portugal for our first weekend getaway, but little did we know this new country was going to leave us with a series of adventures that could only be replicated by one’s wildest imagination.

Adventure #1: a six-hour long bus ride, no air conditioning included

Transportation was the farthest from our minds when pondering over Portugal, but with 90 degrees as the fixed temperature on the bus’s thermostat, we knew we were in for a ride.

By the time we landed in Lisbon, our bodies had sweat off an entire day’s worth of meals, so naturally we filled our stomachs with the downtown night life of the city.  We may have bit off more than we could chew that evening, for the meal presented to us was a bit heavier than one could properly digest.

Although a little fearful of what the second day would generate, we were ready for Portugal to show us its beautiful places and playas, rather than its dubious people and parties.

Adventure #2: Sintra

Getting on the bus that second morning in Portugal, I had zero preconception of what this so-called destination of Sintra entailed.  As we crossed the borders to its entrance, I felt transported to entirely new world, engulfed by a fortress of hills, filled with ancient castles and rippling waterfalls.  The view laid before us showcased bright, pastel-colored houses nestled along endless terrain, as the peaks of clementine clay roofs popped out against the hunter green treetops. The roads were narrow and winding, cutting off into a new direction before your bearings could be fully grasped with the first route in line.  Sintra seemed to consist of no boundaries, stretching out for miles on end, and from every angle, nature had official jurisdiction.

The land felt mysterious, a form of intriguing peculiarity, as random pieces of elaborate architecture would be scattered amongst the town’s interior. Next to quaint shops and restaurants sat obsolete castles and towers; a look to the right would produce a view of historic palaces, as a glimpse to the left would display the entrance to a jungle with rushing waterfalls by its side.

After digging around, I disocovered Sintra has stood the test of all periods of Portuguese history.  In the 8th century, the Muslims discovered its magical location and built various castles here.  Then during Medieval times, the first Portuguese king, Afonso Henriques, arrived and built impressive estates, called “quintas”, to call his summer homes.  Many aristocrats in later centuries followed suit, and built palaces and structures in this forbidden forest to leave their mark.  After the murder of the King Carlos I of Portugal in 1908, Sintra was largely forgotten as a place of dwelling for aristocrats, and was left for tourists to trace its abandoned steps.

Walking its grounds in modern day, I felt as if the town’s architect made the blueprint of Sintra a purposeful game of hide-and-seek, as hidden treasures were placed sneakily throughout the town to be uncovered by those who searched its unexpected corners.

And if hide-and-seek was the game of choice for the blueprints, I would conclude that Sintra’s arena was a land of misfit toys; a countryside filled with antique structures and forests all left behind by previous owners, serving no purpose to the modern world, but finding their place of awe within each other.

Stay tuned for adventures #4 & #5 of Portugal!