Hampton Court and Kew Gardens

We had another free weekend after our trip to Lisbon, so on Saturday we decided to hit a few more of the sites around London while we had the chance. Our pals Eric and Anne also had the weekend off, so they joined us.

Hampton Court

This is a palace about 30 minutes southwest of London (by train). It was built in the time of Henry VIII (the one with the wives), and at that time would have been a far retreat from the city, although now it is right in the middle of the suburbs. To give a brief history, Cardinal Wolsey was the king's main adviser and very rich due to some less-than-Catholic deeds, and he built this palace as his home outside of the city. He was held mostly responsible for not being able to get Henry a divorce from his first wife from the Pope, and as such started to fall from the king's good graces. When Henry visited the palace, he made a remark similar to "It is grander than even any of my houses", and the Cardinal felt 'moved' to give the palace to him as a gift.

So, today, it is one of a few historical royal palaces that are no longer in use by the Queen or her family, but can be visited for a small price. Or, if your friends have bought a special pass, you can get in for free and save the $40 (thanks again!!).

The palace was pretty nice. It is enormous and it is crazy to think that one guy built it as his home. Of course there are some crazy palaces in the world, and it doesn't compare to some of the things that we've seen, but most of those were built by royals and supported an entire court. This was just built as the Cardinal's house. It is just crazy to think of the power of the Church at that time, and the extravagance that the power afforded to the Church leaders. You feel terrible for the poor parishioners who slaved in the fields and lived in huts and paid for Wolsey to build this mansion.

We spent the morning at the palace, walking through and seeing some of the rooms of the king, the art work that adorned the walls, etc. We even got an interesting story from one of the stewards, who told us that many of the pieces of art were there originally, but at some point were sold or given away to important families in the kingdom. Those families now have huge estates with outrageous tax bills, and in order to pay their taxes, they many times are forced to give up pieces from their private collections. He pointed out one piece in particular that had hung in the palace hundreds of years ago, but had just returned a few months before because some well-to-do couldn't afford his property taxes.

The palace also had some nice gardens, with some interesting cone-shaped trees and the official world's largest grapevine (complete with Guinness plaque - I think based on thickness, not length). After seeing everything, we grabbed a quick bite of lunch in the town and headed over to Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens

This is a large park that is fairly central to the city, about half way between downtown and Hampton Court. It is supposedly the official garden of the Queen, and it is really enormous. There were a couple greenhouses that housed plants from around the world. The outdoors also contained lots of flowers and trees and other things that you'd see in the other parks of the city, but here they had small signs giving the proper name of the plant (which I guess is the main difference between a free park and a garden where they charge admission, unless the admission charge covered another world record - the largest compost pile).

It was all very nice, although there isn't too much to say - imagine trees and flowers and a few large greenhouses, and you've got it. I'm sure a botanist would be able to provide much more insight, but for us it was just a nice sunny afternoon outdoors.

On the whole, we had a great time. It was good to check a few more things off the list, and thanks to Eric and Anne we were able to do it very cheaply.

Lisbon, Portugal

This trip was sort of like Barcelona - it was something that I never really cared much about seeing, but it got added to our list because Jenna wanted to see everything. Now that we're back, I'm really happy that we went.

Friday, June 5th

In order to make the flights work out, we had to leave for this trip on Friday night. I took off work a few hours early so that we could catch our plane at 4:45. We were able to get to the hostel and have a nice relaxing dinner in the Baixa (old city center). We were happy to be able to get into town early and not feel like we needed to rush from beginning to end.

This picture is really one of my (Aaron) favorites, but it probably warrants some explanation.  I have a self-diagnosed medical problem where my eyes are extra sensitive to light (it's a real thing - photophobia - look it up).  So, when posing for pictures in sunlight I need sunglasses or else I look all squinty.  When glasses aren't available, I have to force my eyes wide open, which makes my face look weird(er).  This problem also happens sometimes at night when the camera's pre-flash forces a squint.  This happened about 4 times as we tried to take a photo this evening, so Jenna gave her best impression of "forcing her eyes open" like I do.

After dinner we headed back to the hostel, which was really nice. The Goodnight Hostel was located in the center of the pedestrian-only old town, and had a very friendly feel. The lady running it had drinks and snacks ready for us at all hours, and there were always several other travelers hanging out in the main common room. We spent both evenings of our visits just hanging out with these other folks, which was a nice change and a lot more fun than just going and crashing back at some hotel room.

Saturday, June 6th

We started our sightseeing by heading to the Belem neighborhood. This is a few miles west of the center, and is where the ships used to depart from. Of course, Portugal was famous for its explorations, supposedly being way ahead of England, Spain, etc. in their shipbuilding and navigational skills (which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese). So, this area was pretty important. The main site is an old monastery - The Monastery of Jeronimos - where the sailors would stay just before leaving the city.

This place was pretty cool. We got a chance to walk through the chapel, which was quite nice, and also the cloister. If you're like us (up until a few months ago) and don't know what a cloister is, it's an open area/garden that is attached to most major cathedrals. This one was used by the monks for reflection, etc, and is supposed to be one of the nicest in Europe (according to Rick Steves). We've only seen a handful, but this one did seem pretty good. The only bad thing was that they were in the middle of filming something the day we were there, so most of the cloister, including the fountain, was closed off and covered up (we think to protect from the rain). There was also tons of equipment - lights, cameras, huge crates, etc - strewn around the area. It did make the experience a little less enjoyable, but it was still nice.

After the monastery we headed across the street to a famous pastry shop called Pasties de Belem. This place is famous for the pastry which has been named after the shop, and now is sold all over the country. As you can see in the picture, it is a small pie-like pastry filled with custard and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It was delicious!! Apparently, these were created at the height of the port wine industry. The recipe for Port included the use of egg whites, so a group of nuns developed this recipe to make use of all the left-over yolks (very industrious!!).

After enjoying our pastry in a nearby park, we went back to the city and hopped on the famous #28 tram (old wooden style) which took us up to the Castle of Sao Jorge at the top of the Alfama District. This castle is at the top of a large hill and overlooks the city. We toured around the fortifications and took in the views over the city and the water. We also got to see some of the peacocks that roam the grounds. It was my (Aaron) first peacock siting, so we had fun watching the male try to attract the female.

By the time we left it was mid-afternoon, and we had nothing to do until our dinner plans at around 9:00 (they eat very late in Portugal, the restaurant didn't even open until 8:30). We strolled down the hill, through the Alfama district, back to the city center, making a stop at the Se Cathedral, where we got a free concert from a youth choir that was practicing at the time. The Alfama district is one of the few areas that survived a major earthquake in the 1700s, so it has some of the "old European" charm that the rest of the city, which was rebuilt with a well thought out grid plan, does not.

We got back to the main part of town and went to the waterfront to relax for a bit before dinner. We sat out on the pier which was the main arrival point in the city during its height as a seafaring nations. While sitting, we looked out and noticed that off in the distance there were several black spots in the water that looked like weeds or something. After a little while, they were getting closer and closer, and we realized that it was fish. Within a few minutes, literally thousands of fish had made their way up near the pier. You'll have to look at the photos, as I can't describe what it looked like, but for as far as you could see the water was full of these little guys. I tried to do some research on what these fish were and why there were so many, but couldn't find anything. I guess it was just some kind of anomaly, but we were glad to have seen it!

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up, then were off to dinner. Lisbon is famous for a particular type of music called Fado. It is sort of sad music belted out by one singer, accompanied by a guitar - traditionally a 12-stringer. The best explanation I heard was "eyes closed, mouth open" singing, which I think was a good description. We wanted to take some of this in, so we went to a highly recommended Fado restaurant in the Alfama district. Either this place was just really good, or they knew we were American and didn't want tourists taking up the good seats, because we arrived shortly after the restaurant opened and were told that there was no seating in the main restaurant, so we would have to go upstairs. It was a little disappointing, because we didn't get to be in on the main action, but on the plus side, we were still able to hear most of it, but didn't have to pay the €15 cover charge to sit in the main room with the musicians.

After dinner it was pretty late, so we headed back to the hostel, talked to some people in the common area briefly, ate some rice pudding they had waiting for us, and headed up to bed.

Sunday, June 7th

Saturday we experienced a 30 minute downpour, but then it was pretty dry the rest of the day and partly sunny, which was appreciated. On Sunday it started out pretty cloudy, windy, and occasional showers and continued that way throughout the day. I was glad for the clouds and the wind so we wouldn't be hot as we walked around outside all day; Jenna, however, was a little cold and wishing for the sun. We spent this entire day outside of Lisbon in a town called Sintra. This town is in the hills, 45 minutes away by train, and historically was the retreat of the Portuguese royalty and upper class, so it is full of old mansions and castles.

Our first stop was the National Palace, which was located in Sintra town and was the royal retreat. We were able to work out our arrival to be within the four hours per week when entrance was free, so we were happy to avoid that fee. The palace was pretty nice, having some pretty unique rooms (the Swan Room, the Magpie Room, etc which were named for their painted ceilings). The palace was also interesting for its mix of European and Middle-Eastern (or Moorish) designs. The Moors controlled the area back around the 1200s, so their architectural influences can be seen through out Lisbon and the rest of the country.

Our next stop was to go up a ridiculous hill (by bus, luckily) to the old Moorish castle. This is a ruined castle that sits at the top of the 2nd highest hill in the area, and looks down over the town of Sintra. We walked the castle walls, had a nice picnic lunch from one of the turrets, and enjoyed the breathtaking views out over the countryside. There wasn't much going on here, but it was still very interesting to see an old style castle and walk around the walls.

Our last and most rewarding stop was to the Pena Palace and Gardens, which sit nearby on the tallest hill in the area (mountain by Kansas or Texas standards). This is a true fairy tale castle. It looks like something you would see in a Disney movie. It was built up on this mountain by one of the royals for his queen, which adds to the Disney-esque feel. We walked all around the outside of the castle and took a ton of pictures of the turrets and courtyards and surrounding forests. We also took a tour of the interior, which actually left a lot to be desired considering how much we liked the outside.

After seeing all of the actual castle, we set off for the surrounding gardens. These "gardens" were really just the woods surrounding the castle, but there were some paved walkways and a few man-made ponds/streams, so apparently you are allowed to call that a garden. Either way, it was nice to walk through. We saw some great views of the castle from here.

It was also nice to be out in nature (rather than in the middle of the city like we're used to). There was some nice wildlife, including Jenna's new favorite tree (branches shaped like a "J" - there's a great story about this, but you'll have to ask, because it is too long even for this blog). On the way out, we also saw the Duck Ponds, where they built 2 small castles on the ponds for the ducks to live in. We only saw 2 ducks in total on the 5 ponds, and neither of them were anywhere near these castles, so we decided that they just must be too drafty.

By the time we'd finished seeing these three sites, it was time to head to the airport, and say goodbye to one of our new favorite cities.