I Never Thought These Places Really Existed!

A church in Sintra, Portugal

We landed in Lisboa, Portugal and picked up the little rental car that would end up taking us hundreds of miles throughout Andalucia over the next week.  We then headed to the hotel we booked off of Av Liberdad, in the center of the city.  The hotel was in a lovely part of town where one can find statues, cobbled roads, fountains and plazas.  And yet next door was Prada.  Our room was on the third floor overlooking the Av Liberdad, huge trees with leaves turning red, yellow and orange.  We drifted off to sleep as people strolled down the street, partying the night away.


The next morning as we were checking out, Jorge, the manager, told us all about the history of the region and highly recommended we visit Sintra on our way to Sevilla.  Sintra was a dream - the type of place you see in movies like Under the Tuscan sun (but not in Italy).  We happened upon a quaint little bakery where we partook of their delicious baked goods and their specialty (each bakery has a specialty) was a little custard baked good.  It was amazing!  As we left the bakery, an outdoor weekend market had set up.  We strolled through the tables of fruits, olives (of course), vegetables, breads, more olives, hams, goats milk cheeses and olives.  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to gather picnic items to eat along the way.

Farmers Market in Sintra

The rest of our day consisted of exploring a bit more of Sintra, stopping in Cascais, an updated fishermen's village, cruising down the coast to Lagos until we then headed east to Sevilla.  It was a beautiful drive.  


We arrived in Sevilla as the sun was setting.  This was a mistake.  Sevilla is quite large.  We had booked a room in the Barrios section.  The entire area was made up of a maze of VERY narrow cobble-stoned streets, most which were one way.  If we put our arms out the windows, we could have enjoyed people's entrees, we were that close.  I am serious about the "maze" part.  We drove through these streets, some which were so narrow that we had to pull in our mirrors so as not to knock them off the car, for at least an hour.  At one point, a man on the side of the street motioned to us that we were driving in a circle.  Duh!  Finally David parked the car and set off on foot to locate the hotel, which ended up being right around the corner.

David and Tammy at a beach in Lagos, Portugal