The Carolyn Diaries : Moorish Castle, Pena Palace, and Sintra National Palace

Good Morning Friends!!!

So I’m currently waiting for my laundry to wash, and we had a little mishap adventure which you’ll just have to wait for because I’m so behind blogging!! So let’s pretend it’s Thursday and we are going on the train to visit Sintra, Portugal.

The morning started off wonderfully with this BEAUTIFUL cappuccino :). The best part? It literally tasted as good as it looks. I think I’ll move here just for the coffee alone, nothing ever tastes this good across the ocean. And if you’re wondering if that’s a fresh off the oven scone with homemade berry jam, it is. Be jealous.

We started off the day by visiting the Moorish Castle, well really it was more like the ruins of whatever castle was there and the walls that lasted around the area. The original structure was built in the 10th century. Around 1108 a Netherland King spotted the castle, overtook it, and “renovated.” Now there’s no castle left but the floor plan...hmmm looks like the moors has better architects and no revisions were needed after all...

But look at how green and beautiful this place is!

Can you spot Mom? Haha she always seems to be hiding from the camera.

We went to the top of the fortress walls and look at this great view!! We found the Pena Palace, home to King Ferdinand II and whatever drugs he was tripping on when he made this Disney-esq playground in the 19th century.

Look at how crazy those colors are? Imagination wise we have to give the guy credit, but practical points are in the negatives. An enemy could spot this palace 8 million miles away. Looks like the fun nature of the building started to rub off on everyone as the day progressed.

The four Islams were jumping from wall to wall, posing, and giggling at their own childlike nature. I wish we dedicated our whole day to this palace, as we only saw just this part, missing out on the entire park that seemed to be created for this king.

Jihan had waaaayyyy too much fun taking the mick out of us girls for being posey....but just you wait, turns out he decided being cool jabs “instagrammable” was worth it after all.

I got Mom to pose with me too!!!!

If you were questioning whether it was equally brilliant and opulent inside as it was outside, let me tell you, it was. Get a load of this chandelier! I’ll take two please. I think if I were to live in any castle, I’d like this one.

We decided that if Dolan and King Ferdinand II had a competition regarding kitchenware, we would win. Those pots are nothing compared to our 500 people cow party pots. Hahaha

More poses on our way out.

Oh and if you thought I would be too nervous to bring out the Steamy Alpaca, you thought wrong hehehe. Steamy goes where I go, I’m telling you if I instagram this I could go viral.

Our final destination was the National Palace of Sintra. Which unfortunately just couldn’t compare after playing in the Disneyland of Portugal for three hours. But we carried on, because you only travel once right?

Good thing too, because the Steamy Alpaca found some nice geese friends.

The National Palace of Sintra was medieval and inhabited from the 15th to 19th century. Which means that the kings seriously upgraded when they built the Pena Palace. Fine by me, somehow the millions of miles we walked was less daunting when there’s so much to look at all the time lol.

Yet we still played amongst corridors...