4th of July & Portugal 2016 {Lisbon and Sintra}

This 4th of July was almost like the last 4th of July....we went to the base 4th of July celebration (grabbed a spot on the grass with a bunch of our friends, the kids played on the big blow up slides and bounce houses and carnival rides, we ate yummy food, hung out and then watched some fireworks!). It was a fun evening...little hot but we survived without any sunburns :)

The next day we packed up the car and headed to Portugal! This time we headed a little further north though and went to the Lisbon area. We stayed in an outlying town called Sintra though...which was awesome! The area is dotted with palaces and mansions....it was a "get away" from life in Lisbon and is a picturesque, almost fairy tale like area. It really felt like it too! It's a hilly, tree covered area so a lot of the palaces/mansions have gorgeous parks surrounding them. It was a great area to go to for us as a family because we got to see beautiful views and awesome castles but were able to keep active because we could climb and walk and explore the area at our will. It was so great!!!

We had our ups and downs of course with 3 kids....honestly traveling with all of them is more of a headache than it's worth sometimes....but we can't leave them every time we wanna go somewhere ;) They had fun though and hopefully will look back on it as a good memory! :) :) :)

After we arrived we checked into our Airbnb apartment (which was super cute and a perfect location right in the middle of Sintra! We parked our car that first day and didn't have to move it the entire time we were there because we could walk or talk a bus/train to anywhere we wanted to go). We took that first day and went to the nearest palace (which was just a few minutes from our apartment), the Sintra Nacional Palace. It was a pretty little Palace with an awesome kitchen. The two large tower looking things on the outside are actually two massive chimneys for the kitchen. 

The next day we went up to the Pena Palace....which is a Romanticist castle and one of the seven wonders of Portugal :) It's a beautiful beautiful palace on top of a hill looking over Sintra. I love the color throughout it and especially the tilework (which is everywhere in Portugal and I LOvED). 

The park/forest area surrounding the palace was amazing too! The kids enjoyed running through the paths and looking for streams and bridges. It was a fun afternoon.

From there we took a short little walk over to the neighboring castle...the Castle of the Moors....this medieval castle was built in the 8th and 9th centuries and is pretty much just rocky walls and towers along this hill above Sintra. It was fun to explore though and the view was great! Too bad it was so hazy though...you are supposed to be able to see to the coast from there pretty easily. You can see to Lisbon too from this castle and Pena Palace

The last thing we did that day was take a train into downtown Lisbon. We got there and were gonna go on a little walking tour but found a little "tuk tuk" vehicle (just a motorized little open car thing that takes tours. It was an ok tour...the guide guy was pretty cool and was pretty entertaining to the kids...the kids loved riding around on the tuk tuk and it was much better than having to walk around everywhere. So it was worth it. He dropped us off for dinner at this huge building that was basically just a huge food court but made up of really good restaurants and really good food. Pretty cool place to eat at.

i LOVE the tiled buildings here!!!!! SO amazing 

looking over Lisbon!

The next day started off a little rainy but luckily it didn't last too long. We went up to the  Quinta da Regaleira Palace. The actual building isn't much...kinda small really compared to most of the castles/palaces we've seen but the grounds were AMAZING! Just like the Pena Palace, it was surrounded by forests and paths and more....there were towers and stairs and tunnels all over...it was so much fun! We loved exploring it...it was so gorgeous....very fairy tale feeling. 

Have I mentioned I love European Doors? : )

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This place is seriously like a full sized castle play ground! :) :) :)

so dramatic :) 

The last thing we did that day was take a little bus ride to the coast and go to Cabo de Roca- which is the south-westernmost point in Europe :) It was gorgeous!

Here's a few more random pics from our trip! :) 

 And a few pics of our awesome AirBNB- it was so cute!