Our Next Big Adventure

Christmas in Portugal - Christmas Eve and Day in Sintra

When 17 people converge from six different places in five different countries, things are bound to happen. When you factor in that our family is involved, the odds of a screw up rise exponentially. The first sign of trouble was with the MD/PA contingent flying out of BWI to meet up with the NY contingent in Newark. A flight delay, thankfully announced early, had them rerouted by train into Newark, luckily still in time to catch the flight to Lisbon. (This is the same group for whom the flight home was delayed out of Lisbon due to cockpit seat problems. I still have no idea how they got home from Newark!)
The Swiss contingent, we who arguably had the easiest travel plans by far, was alerted to a potential issue when Bella, sitting by the window, announced as the plane departed the gate that our luggage was sitting on the cart visible outside the plane. Of course, our thoughts ran along the lines of Oh well, there is nothing we can do about it now and it must be someone else’s luggage which bears a strong resemblance. Yeah, well…not so much!

Fourteen of us arrived in Lisbon within 45 minutes of each other on Christmas Eve morning. Three more arrived from the UK that night, and two from Thailand on Christmas morning. Neither the other US contingent traveling out of BWI through Paris, nor the UK or Thai contingents had any issues, thus providing supporting evidence of the travel curse associated with our family. (In all fairness though, four of the US contingent had a three day unplanned stopover in Frankfurt after Christmas in France two years ago, so it was their turn to have easy flights.)

The house (really two attached houses) we rented was owned by a man named Ben who lived in NY. This made contracts (in English) and payment (in US $) fairly easy. Formerly a rectory or convent (there was conflicting data) the houses were advertised to be filled with museum quality antiques. Knowing my family’s penchant for mayhem and mischief, (all in the name of fun, of course), I was a little worried. It was needless worry. The houses were probably beautiful underneath all that stuff, but it was hard to really see the bones. It had absolutely beautiful tile work.

One thing the house was though, was cold!
Yes, we all wore our coats for the first day! We were bundled up all week, but it did get better after that initial day. When you have a party of 17 arriving, wouldn’t you think to get the house ready and check for the heat to be on and working? Maybe they thought all those people in one space would generate enough heat.


The Thai contingent stayed in a B&B located about a 5 minute walk away. They had heat, and WiFi, and breakfast brownies! Not having WiFi in our houses really set us back. We were told it was available for fee when we arrived. What this really meant was, it is available if you drove to the store, (we did not have a car), purchase a plug in UBS type modem, and sign on using your (previously signed up for) mobile ISP. We count on using WiFi to finalize details of the next day’s plans, so not having WiFi to do this meant we floundered and wasted time regrouping on our excursions.

So, that was Christmas Eve - full of traveling, arrivals, grocery procurement, fighting with the heat, getting sleeping arrangements sorted out, waiting for delayed luggage to arrive, etc.

Christmas day was gloriously sunny! The Thai contingent arrived without problem and at some point, our luggage also arrived. When everyone was settled, we went out to explore Sintra which is said to be the most magical city in Portugal.

Our house was set up on a hill overlooking the historic section of Sintra. Heading into town meant a trek down very steep steps and hills, and heading home meant the same uphill trek, a killer at the end of the day! The humidity was high making the tiled streets very slippery when the sun was not shining on them to dry them out. That was fun!


Overall, Sintra was a nice place to visit. The historic area was pretty. The main tourist attractions were well worth seeing. Given that Portugal was the first EU country to fall into economic demise, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the overall disrepair and seeming poverty of the residential areas. One very frustrating note about Portugal was the difficulty in using credit or debit cards to pay for food and services. For a place which is dependent on the tourist industry to help get them out of this financial slump, they certainly didn’t make it easy for tourists to pay in anything other than cash.

The area of Sintra we explored on Christmas day was nice and we even found a few things open.
 


Each person received a cut out Santa with a work on one side and a number on the other. Then she read a story. When you heard your word, you were allowed to select a present from the pile. Once the story was completed and all presents had a home, the number dictated the order in which the presents were opened for all to oh and ah over. It was a lot of fun and we had great games to play all week.


While the US, Swiss, and Thai contingents went to Christmas Mass (yes, we've added Portugese to the list of languages in which we've celebrated Mass), the UK contingent volunteered to make dinner, a Herculean task indeed! But they more than managed, making a beautiful dinner for us all! Thanks again to the UKers!!

posted by Kimberly @ 4:35 AM