I was so looking forward to our return to Sintra. Our last visit was relaxing and I was charmed by the old town. This trip I felt more prepared and was determined to hire a tuck tuck. I braced myself for the rush of drivers and tour operators that accost you when you exit the train station.

We lucked out and almost immediately hired a nice young man who agreed to drive us up the steep streets to the Peña palace. Our plan was to visit there and then walk back down the hill stopping at the Castelo and the gardens en route. We enjoyed the tuk tuk ride and appreciated the driver stopping for photos as he passed various lookouts along the way.

As we crept further up the hill, the traffic increased dramatically. Soon we were inching along. This didn’t bode well. He let us out slightly before the ticket kiosks and we walked the rest of the way. The line at the self serve ticket booths was long. We got in line then read signs to scan a QR code to avoid the lines. I tried that, but the reception was slow. We just waited in the line. There was only timed entry slots available and the first slot we could get was two hours away. It was both too long to wait and not enough time to walk to the Castelo and back. We deliberated and decided to take a later entry.

With Peña Palace tickets in hand, we walked downhill toward the Moorish Castle. The ancient fortress was built into the cliff face. We walked to the entrance downhill only to climb steeply uphill once inside. Once inside we realized the only entertainment was to hang out in the center with no view or to walk up hundreds of stairs to circumnavigate the castle walls.

I chose the castles walls. The wall walk was beautiful and invigorating. Looking down at the winding streets of Sintra, I am glad we took the tuk tuk. (We may have died before reaching the mountain top and certainly couldn’t have done this walk afterwards.) Each step along the walls took me higher. There were no guard rails or handrails. The wall was low in spots and the stairs seemed narrower the higher I climbed. Because the wall was built along a cliff face, it was a long way to the ground. Definitely it a walk for the faint of heart or the unfit. But the views…. The views….. The National Palace of Sintra, visited on a prior trip, was visible in the distance. I drank in the country side and the glimpses of the sea.

I decided to make my way down from the upper lookout before my husband started to wonder what happened to me. Once at the bottom, I did a little celebration of thanksgiving that I had not fallen to my death on the stairs. Perhaps that was premature, because there were more stairs to climb down…five flights in fact….to get to the ladies room.

All in all, I enjoyed the visit to the Castelo. There were no structures to visit, no buildings, no interpretive signs. There was just the ancient wall walk and an interior that is now more garden than castle. Nature with glorious views. My kind of place.

We decided to begin our walk back uphill to the Peña Palace. It was past lunchtime and we were getting hungry. After huffing and puffing our back through endless traffic, we noticed it was even more crowded than before. We headed to a site map and realized that it was a half hour walk to the Peña Palace entry point (sigh). But there was a food kiosk visible near the entry point we needed to locate (yay).

We started the long walk…of course uphill. About halfway we sat down for a rest along the steep path. We eventually arrived at a large plaza with the food. The line to the counter ran the length of the plaza and service was slow. There was no way to see what to order until it was your turn at the counter and orders were being individually prepared by the lone worker. My American impatient self had to be reminded that a slower pace and individualized service was a good thing. My legs, jellylike from all the climbing I had done all day disagreed. Standing in a long line in order to eat was not in the plan.

Just as it was our turn to order, an American girl brought her tuna salad sandwich back to the counter and jumped in front of the woman who had just paced her order. She loudly asked to exchange her sandwich, which she clearly had sampled, for something else. She said she couldn’t possibly eat it, because the bread was “too hard”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted. She was holding a sandwich made with freshly baked artisan bread. The worker tried to be polite, the entitled girl kept getting louder insisting that it be exchanged for something else because she liked soft bread. After an cringeworthy exchange, the manager firmly told her there was nothing wrong with her sandwich, she had ordered it, and that it would not be exchanged. The manager called her attention to the hundred or more people happily eating identical bread. The girl stomped and pouted and made a giant to do of throwing the sandwich in the trash. Meanwhile I was trying to think of how I could be the opposite of whatever that was and if I could fake an Australian accent. I no longer wonder why Americans have such a bad reputation as tourists. We’ve seen too much over the years.

After the 10 minute delay caused by sandwichzilla, we finally got our food. The bread was delicious (soft in the middle with a hard crust), just the way it is supposed to be, in case you were wondering. But there were not enough tables for the number of people so we sat on a large rock. Unruly children chased each other through the flower beds, screaming and crushing plants. They ran into people, stood on statues, and sped in and out of the food line playing tag while their parents sat on the opposite side of the plaza drinking wine. The teacher in me had to resist the urge to line them up and talk about responsibility and courtesy (the kids could also use some instruction).

Finally we headed up the steps to the entry point only to find a line. This line was a queue to sort you into time stamps for entry. Once inside the outer courtyard, we stood in the actual line where they counted out the number of people who could enter every so many minutes. My husband kept making mooing sounds to make me laugh as we were herded like cattle toward the entrance.

Once inside there were interesting things to see, except there were so many people you had to jostle and avoid getting run over. There were few signs to tell you what you were looking at and you couldn’t stop long enough to process. I felt like I was in a drive through Christmas light display or a Disney ride. Pleasant enough but you must keep moving. Having an okay time, but so many rude people. I expect the crowds in a theme park, hated them in a castle with tight spaces. I hated even more that most had no respect for what they we actually looking at and were to busy taking selfies to notice their surroundings.

We fought our way out of the castle. We had to struggle our way through a crowd waiting to ascend the steps to an overlook to even get to the stairs leading to the gift shop. After zig zagging around shoppers, we made it to the exit. The prospect of walking down the mountain through the gardens had lost its luster. As we walked the half hour back to the entrance, we decided we had walked as many hills and had seen as many people as we cared to for one day. Another tuk tuk ride, whisked us down the mountain.

I wish I could say the train ride home was peaceful. Seated near us were loud American college students who thought the whole train car should hear about their drunken exploits in Lisbon. Trying to look less like American tourists, we settled into our seats and counted the miles to our quiet apartment in Alfama. It is funny how some sites turn into a tourist circus. Lulled by the rocking of the train, I compared our first leisurely visit to the National Palace of Sintra to the human zoo that was Peña Palace. Hard to fathom the influence of travel writers and “must see” designations. I guess the lesson is that we prefer hidden gems. I don’t like to be crowded. And we never, ever want to part of the “ugly American tourist” crowd. Tour groups are not in our future.