portugal (ep. one: sintra, family)

I've got fourteen cousins, six aunties, five uncles, eight cousins-in-law, eight cousins-once-removed, and a beautiful pair of grandparents. These are the relatives I see often. There are more on the periphery that pop up on special occasions: great uncles and second cousins and some that I can't quite place. Anyway the numbers don't matter really. What matters is that they're all wonderful. I do not fear family gatherings. I anticipate them. I miss them. 

In the time I've been gone, I've missed a wedding and my grandma's eightieth birthday. On both occasions, I was one of the only ones missing. On both occasions, it felt like I'd been left out of a joke. And, on both occasions, I felt cheated. It wasn't fair that I should have to choose between being with the ones I love and exploring the world. It's the feeling of making a stupid mistake on an exam. Once it's too late, the whole thing just seems so obvious: the answer is seventy-three, and I should be with my family. But when the moment passes, the bigger picture emerges and that one thing doesn't seem so bad. But I still miss them. I miss them in a nostalgic way; I miss what they remind me of and the things they stand for. I miss them more acutely because I don't know when exactly I'll see them again. It's hard to describe. I went to Portugal last week, and I found a word for it.

***

I haven't seen any of my family for seven months and sixteen days. I'm watching the sun strengthen through the porthole windows of my trusty Ryanair aircraft on a clear Tuesday morning. My flight is delayed. It's the French, the pilot assures us, as we sit stationary on the runway. He says that more than once. Something about air traffic control strikes. But mostly just the French.

When the French get their act together and we eventually land in Lisbon, it's midday. The grass between the runways is yellow with dandelions. Solid start to the perfect sunshine holiday I'm hungry for. I navigate the metro and the train line, aiming for Sintra. I haven't looked up thank you in Portuguese. This is a major oversight on my part, as it makes me feel like an inconsiderate arsehole tourist every time I speak to someone. Even in a constant state of under-preparation for travel, I usually manage to engage my manners. I avoid talking to people on the way to Sintra, because I can't thank them afterwards.

John has been doing circuits of the area around the train station. In the hilly Sintra streets, that falls into the moderate-to-intense exercise category. We walk down a steep staircase between two buildings and end up at Saudade, a vintage guesthouse painted blue. Sculpted white birds scatter the outside walls. This is not like my usual accommodation (the type where you don't quite know what that is scattered on the walls). The owner (small, excitable, knit sweater) talks us through everything you could ever need to know about getting around Sintra, and eating in Sintra, and things to see in Sintra, and an in-depth analysis of whether we'd be better off taking a bus or a taxi to the Palácio Nacional da Pena (Pena Palace) and the Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish castle) tomorrow.

There's a solid list of things to see in Sintra when the weather's good. I'll take you through it. 

We choose the Palácio Nacional de Sintra and the Quinta da Regaleira, close to town, for our afternoon explorations. The National Palace is wide and rambling, with enough intricately tiled surfaces to amuse us for an hour or so. Oh, and there are some excellent ceilings. The two bulbous white chimneys that define Sintra's townscape originate here, in the vast kitchens. Imagining the sweaty, aromatic heat of these rooms in their heyday makes me all kinds of happy.

Up the hill a way, the impressive exterior of the Quinta da Regaleira hides a fairly unimpressive inside. It looks like something from The Adams Family, John says. He's right, but the interior is far less atmospheric. Oddly, the whole place is swathed with prints of architectural sketches, and books containing architectural sketches, and original architectural sketches, and massive blow-ups of architectural sketches. It's all a bit much for me. It feels strange to be presented with the plans for the building I'm standing inside. Like kissing someone after I've personally performed their annual dental check up. Some things (like architecture and molars?) are best enjoyed through the veil of ignorance.

The building is totally eclipsed by the sprawling, tangled gardens. They're all caves and grottoes and waterfalls and old, old abandoned wells. And an aquarium that needs some serious attention. I follow some stepping stones across a creek, as you do, and find myself in an unlit tunnel of rock that appears to go on far into the side of the hill. Exploration ensues. It's damp and slippery inside. Water drips from the jagged rocks as I fumble along in the pitch black. I manage to emerge (miraculously unscathed) into a puddle of sunlight thrown down the straight drop of an old well. John has been behind me but now he disappears up the stairs to the surface. I'm left with the dripping cold and my own breath. London is so far from this. Hiking around on three hours sleep, I feel like the only thing keeping me going is the clean air. I'm in love with Sintra already. 

We eat dinner at a local place that hand cuts their chips. A small television is playing the football. Afterwards, I take a shower longer than my London hot water tank ever allows. It's amazing how even a few hours on a plane leave that characteristic grotty travel feeling on my skin. 

Next is the Moorish castle, which was built in the ninth century and looks just like a ruin on a hill should look, all winding up and down with battlements and great stone turrets. We're shedding jackets and scarves by the time we get to the top. I'm surprised by how alone we are. It feels wild. Something about the old stone and great height. I could get used to this adventure lark. I'm playing explorer theme music in my head. 

The Pena Palace is less wild. It sits on a twin hill next to the Moorish castle, and it's possibly the most cheerful royal abode I've ever seen. The towers are all yellow and red paint and blue patterned tiles. Against the flat blue sky I think it might be my favourite royal palace ever. The gardens are wide and unkempt, scattered with ruins. Although they can't compete with the caves of the Regaleira, we could have stayed two more hours wandering the shaded paths. 

Everything about Sintra is wonderful, but what's most wonderful is walking in the sun with someone who has known me my whole life. Sitting at dinner and discussing the people we know so intimately and love so well. The shared understanding of where we've come from. This is what I miss about family. 

We both find it strange to be here together, where we don't speak the language or know the high school history. I never expected to have my travel world and my home world intersect in a small town in the hills of Portugal. A darling woman serves us pastries and fruit and juice at a cafe in town attached to the guest house, called Saudade. We tell her we're cousins, and now we live on opposite sides of the world, but we've somehow both ended up here. She smiles like she has a secret. She tells us that in English, saudade has no direct translation. It's a nostalgic, melancholic feeling of longing for absent things, loved ones. It's a deeply emotional recollection of things that brought happiness, once. It can be felt like an emptiness, like a sense that in a given moment something is missing that should be there. She smiles warmly at us and tells us we are fighting saudade.