Portugal // Aviero, Sintra & Cabo Da Roca

After Lousa we drove down the coast, stopping at a few little towns along the way. Aviero was an adorable venice-like town with a few canals and colorful buildings. We stopped in just for lunch, and that was about enough time to see everything we wanted to see. About 15 minutes away was a little beach community dotted with candy striped houses. It was super adorable, but SUPER windy and deserted, so we just drove through and headed back down the coast. 

We spent one night in Sintra (a day and a half) and it was the perfect time to see what we needed to see. It was SO beautiful and SO touristy - the town was super tiny and covered a small part of the mountainside, and the main reason for stopping was to see the Pena National Palace and Castle of the Moors. When we first arrived it was POURING rain, but we still made our way over to the Quinta da Regaleira, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is an estate filled with a romantic palace, moss covered grottos, caves, deep wells with winding staircases, and other exquisite constructions. It was so foggy and made it slightly spooky and like we were in an a fairy tale. There are definitely magic powers hidden within the deep dark caves of the park. 

The next day we walked about 15 miles and saw all of the Sinta Palace and Moorish Castle. The Palace was so pretty and unique, and the Castle was cool (but not THAT cool, it just had beautiful views but was pretty small, basically just a castle wall). It was SO windy that day which I think made it a little hard to enjoy, but it was still fun to see. 

SO WINDY!!

Before heading into Lisbon we stopped by Cabo da Roca, which is the westernmost point of Europe. It had a beautiful lighthouse and looked pretty much exactly like West Marin. It was beautiful to see and made me a tiny bit homesick for the Bay Area.