Palaces and Parade

We started the driving to the hill top town of Sintra. This city near Lisbon is where the royalty and nobility of Portugal had summer palaces and homes. Brief history Portugal has been a country for 900 years. They have had LOTS of Kings, until the monarchy was overthrown in 1910. They then had a Fascist dictatorship now they have a democracy. So they had lots of time to build and rebuild their palaces. We spent a lot of time touring the summer palace of the king. The most interesting to most of us was the change in the style of the tiles that lined the walls of the rooms, over hundreds of years the tiles which originally were a Moorish (Arab) style became a Spanish Style and eventually Portugal developed their own style. The entire town is charming, in a touristy kind of way. It reminds me of a village in Switzerland.

We then drove back to Lisbon and walked around the shopping area before dinner. We didn’t know exactly what our dinner was, it was to be a surprise. It was!

We were driven to a real live working palace, a palace owned by The Marquis of Fronteria. He lives in the palace with his wife. He is childless and his nephew and his wife also live in the palace. When the current Marquis, dies the nephew will become the new Marquis and move into even a better part of the palace. You can see the beautiful gardens and the way we were served. After drinks on the terrace and a walk through the gardens, we were served dinner. We were the only guests. It is nice being served in a palace, but I miss our cats running over the table during dinner.

Over dinner we had an extremely interesting conversation with our Host Anna, who described the national mood to us and more of their history.

After dinner we were driven from the Palace back to the city for the much awaited, biggest craziness of the year. The partying for the Feast of St. Anthony closes down the city. They have a huge parade and lots of people wear green wigs. I was prepared for a wild and crazy time. All of the quarters of the city dress up in funny costumes (to me at least) and slowly walk down the street. An occasional applause is heard. Fado which sings of Soldad or melancholy is the national music of Portugal. Have you ever been to a melancholy parade? This is one! It is like the whole town is on Thorozene and is trying to convince itself it is having a wild time. I like all of the Portugese I have met. When we return to the states I want to learn even more about their history.