This morning we headed for Sintra where we spent a short while wandering around. Of all the places we were to visit I wanted to spend a lot of time in Sintra but time wouldnt allow for that as we had so much to still see today and so much driving to still get through that I'm just disappointed we lost out on seeing more of what was a very beautiful place.

The town of Sintra is surrounded by estates, pleasant woods and springs and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (basically a perfect place to retire and live in peace forever) !

The Serra de Sintra is perfectly situated and offering gorgeous views of the coastline. We drove along a very windey road to the Palace Parque Da Pena, which again, because of time we didn't go in but we could see the Palace through the trees and shrubery. It stands on one of the rocky peaks of the Serra de Sintra, and blends in with its natural background of greenery and crags.

The Palace dates back to 1839, when the King Consort Dom Fernando II of Saxe Coburg-Gotha bought the ruins of the Hieronymite Monastery of Nossa Senhora da Pena and started to adapt it for use as a residence, according to his Romantic taste.

The palace looks amazing and when we got back to Portugal, my first stop will be Sintra !

But it was back on the road, this time we drove 18km west of Sintra to Cabo Da Roca Lighthouse, which is at the most westerly point of European mainland, where the cliff rises out of the Atlantic Ocean to +/- 140 metres above sea level.

It was a very beautiful spot and the view from this point is awesome but it wasn't a clear day so we were surrounded by clouds instead. We took a walk along the cliff walk breathing in the clear fresh air that surrounded the area.

There were hundreds of motorcycle riders around revving and roughing around and we could just see an accident happening, no sooner had we left the area and a couple of miles down the windey bendey hill there had been an accident (which is apparently quite common) amongt the bikers in this area.

Accidents were to become a common site along our travels in Portugal !

It was a drive back through Cascais and onto Belem where we climbed Torre de Belem. A beautiful and original monument that shapes the sky outline and the water of the River Tagus. It was seen by those living at the time of its construction a formidable and fearsome defensive fortress at the entrance to the river estuary.

The tower was built on a basalt island located close to the right bank of the Tagus, opposite the beach at Restelo, but, with the progressive southward creeping of the shore over the years, it is now practically ''moored'' to the bank itself.

We went inside and walked around and had great views over the wide river estuary and the western part of the city of Lisbon.

We then walked a further 10minutes down the Tagus river and went to see the Monument to the discoveries.

A massive monument that celebrates the Portuguese who took part in the Age of Discovery of the 15th and 16th centuries. It is where the ships departed to their often unknown destinations.

The monument consists of a 52 metre-high slab of concrete, carved into the shape of the prow of a ship. The side that faces away from the river features a carved sword stretching the full height of the monument.

The original monument had been built with perishable materials, but it was rebuilt in concrete in 1960, in time for the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator, the sponsor of the Portuguese Discoveries. He is the figure at the tip of the monument, looking out over the river. Behind Henry, on both sides of the monument, are statues of other great people of that era, including explorers, cartographers, artists, scientists and missionaries. Among the 30 featured Portuguese personalities are:

Henry the Navigator

Vasco da Gama (discoverer of the sea route to India)

Pedro Alvares Cabral (discoverer of Brazil)

Ferdinand Magellan (first to circumnavigate the globe)

Diogo Cao (first to arrive to the Congo River)

Bartolomeu Dias (first to cross the Cape of Good Hope)

Alfonso de Albuquerque (second viceroy of Portuguese India)

Luis de Camoes, King Manuel I, Pedro Nunes, Nuno Goncalves

What was really fascinating was on the pavement in front of the monument features a massive mosaic decoration showing a world map with the routes of various Portuguese explorers and a Wind Rose. This mosaic was a gift from South Africa in 1960.

We then drove across the Ponte 25 De Abril bridge (quite a scary experience) and then onto Setubal where we sat around the old town before heading back to our hotel and having our dinner.