Sintra, Portugal

We spent Memorial day in picturesque Sintra, Portugal.  It is about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon, close to the water and is such a charming little town.  The main attraction is 3 palaces/castles.

Sintra National Palace

In the middle of town--it was such a cute little town

Inside Sintra National Palace

This is a picture of Castelo dos Mouros, which was up above the city--they called it the dragon's backbone, because that is what it looks like

We found this fun little park with all of these crazy animals.

Pena National Palace had this really fun park that we had to walk to in order to get to the palace.  It was kind of enchanting!

They built these little castles which were duck houses for the ducks--crazy--all the ponds had them!

Another duck house

In one of the ponds they had these black swans and I have to admit I had never seen a black swan before.

Pena National Palace

 Pena National Palace was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.  It is one of the most interesting palaces we have seen--it looked like something out of a movie--very whimsical, confectionary colors--we LOVED it!!

Pictures don't do it justice--it was such a fun palace!

It was very windy!!

We don't have a lot of pictures from inside, but it was just as interesting inside as it was outside--very playful and fun!

This is Castelo Dos Mouros--the Dragon's backbone!!

Pena Palace in the background

Sintra is close to the surfing capital of the world and has such beautiful coastlines.  

We had a great trip and I LOVE PORTUGAL!!  It is so nice that such an amazing place is so close to us--I had no idea that Portugal was so interesting.  I have a feeling we have a couple of more trips we will be taking to Portugal--great time!!