Exotic Climbs

W ith the afternoon off from a conference near Lisbon, I hired a guide to take me to Sintra—stronghold of the Moorish invader 1,200 years ago, center of monastic learning in the Middle Ages, pleasure garden of Portugal’s monarchy in the 19th century, and all of it spread across an upland pine forest knit together with hiking trails. It takes a guide to make sense of it all.

DAVE CLARK

Just not the guide I got. Vasco (let us call him) was an affable man with a newish Mercedes and a confidence that his grand car would make up for any shortcomings in historical knowledge, English proficiency, or exertion. 

“What are we going to see?” I asked, as we drove into the park.

“Is palace. His name is Pena Palace.”

“Who lives there?”

“Who was lives there,” Vasco corrected me. “Was kinks. Was kinks and quince.”

It was at this point that something amazing came into view. Looming over the forest, at the top of a stovepipe of granite, were a series of crenellated battlements and towers, with pennants fluttering. This was the fortress built by the occupying Arabs in the 9th century as a base for watching the coast and terrorizing the countryside. 

“Can we get there?” I asked Vasco.

“You can get there,” Vasco replied. He dropped me off at a trailhead half a kilometer from the fortress. Ten minutes later I was standing beneath the mossy archway of the castle. It is impressive what one can accomplish with nothing more than religious zeal, sophisticated military architects, and an indifference to the comfort and safety of slaves. The castle was beautiful. It was impregnable. It was also, I noted with alarm, exceedingly easy to fall off of. Its highest point was several hundred yards ahead, up a steep staircase of wobbly looking boulders that ran along the edge of a cliff.