Wendy's Platter…travels

Written on December 2, 2025 about…

Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025

Standing on my tippy toes looking west I found myself hoping to catch a glimpse of my family gathering back in California for Thanksgiving. Given the 5,700 mile distance, my tippy toes didn’t cut it and, of course, the fact that it wasn’t even Thanksgiving Day yet back in the States, also got in the way.

In our van on the way to Sintra…and then we see the Palácio da Pena from the van.

Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite holiday of the year. For me it is the perfect meld of family and food without the distraction of presents, or Easter eggs, or trick-or-treaters at your door, even if they are the cutest unicorn on the block.

Growing up, many of our Thanksgivings were a four-day event that included the families of four of my parents’ best friends from Pomona College. The four days were filled with laughter, music, the outdoors, great food, and even better friends. Over the past few decades, Thanksgiving has been celebrated mostly at my sister Sue’s house but is still a celebration of food and family.

Knowing that Thanksgiving Day would fall at the beginning of our Lisbon stay, we decided to make our Thanksgiving one we would never forget…one without turkey or stuffing, but one that would celebrate family. We would go to the Portuguese equivalent of a fairy castle.

Skylar is looking in awe at the palace.

Just on the outskirts of Lisbon is the small town of Sintra which is home to the Palácio da Pena, an architectural anomaly of neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, neo-Manueline, neo-Moorish, and Indo-Gothic eras. There are towers, turrets, terraces, crennelated walls, horseshoe arches, lavish tilework, courtyards, walls of bright reds and yellows, spires…it is as if the designer wished to celebrate every castle ever made, including Disneyland…although, of course, Disney’s first castle was built over a hundred years after the Palacio da Pena was finished.

Check out the myriad of stone decorations…very little repetition. Even the window have different casements, the walls different tiles.

The mountain top site had a history dating back to the Middle Ages. The Virgin Mary appeared on the site and a small chapel was built. The construction of a convent followed the chapel, which was then followed by a small monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome. The monastery stood for two centuries before it was badly damaged by lightning in the early 1700s. And when the 1755 Lisbon earthquake hit soon after, the monastery was reduced to ruins.

Young (age 21) Prince Ferdinand, soon to become king of Portugal, was awestruck by the sight and acquired the old monastery and the Moorish castle on the adjacent mountain. As king, and with his own money, he hired an amateur German architect to design and construct the summer palace between 1842 and 1854.

The café terrace has a great view as do all of the windows of the palace.

King Ferdinand and Queen Maria were said to have had strong influences in the design. The confluence of Islamic arches with medieval crennelations with ziggurat designs, and intricately painted tiled walls are treats to the senses.

Our tour had started early Thanksgiving morning as we walked about twenty minutes to the pickup point in Lisbon on the Avenue da Liberdade. With thirteen folks, we were divided into two well-appointed Mercedes vans. The drive to Sintra was about 45 minutes, just long enough for us to get the first of our history lesson.

The narrow, winding roads of Sintra, were very reminiscent of the roads we encountered in Gibraltar. Although the Sintra roads were only slightly wider, they were two-way roads with traffic coming towards you at a good clip. Our guide knew the roads and we arrived at the bottom of the palace grounds safely.

Note…the bottom. Climbing up from the bottom of the grounds to the base of the palace was our next job. Fortunately, a month in vertical Thiers had developed my climbing muscles. Next was climbing around the palace, which was also on several levels with plenty of stairways. Not a problem.

Walking through the palace, every room had a different vibe, a different color scheme, a different architectural style, a different mood. Each room evoked a feel of the personality of ther person who most used the room, whether it was King Ferdinand, Queen Maria, the children and eventually grandchildren. All of them made their own statements in their own ways.

Courtyards. beds, and spires are inspiring.

Two stunning chests. The one on the left was for jewelry and had handles so the chest was “portable,” although probably not by the queen. On the right is a stunning tiled chest in jade green.

On the left is Queen Maria of Portugal decked out in her lovely sapphire necklace which was one of the items stolen from the Louvre in October 2025 (it wasn’t us!) and has not been recovered. Skylar is inspecting the most valuable item in the palace, a jeweled sword and is no doubt considering how to add it to his knife collection. The portrait of Queen Maria is hanging on the wall behind him, watching him. I’m pretty sure Skylar won’t take the sword…pretty sure…

When we came upon the kitchen en masse, we gasped with all the lovely copper pots, large cooking area, long prep table, and vaulted ceilings. All of us wanted to make Thanksgiving dinners here.

Skylar and I both noticed these chairs that look so much like the chairs Mom had bought in Paris more than 50 years earlier. On the right is the “stag” room where the hunting parties would feast after the hunt. Skylar and I thought the round table would be appropriate for our next Thanksgivig feast.

When we entered this room, Nick looked up and realized we had found our Thanksgiving turkey.

Nick and I cannot get enough of the view and the palace.

With our guide filling us with palace intrigues and history, we left the Pena Palace to drive towards the area often referred to as the “Portuguese riviera.” The first stop with the Cabo da Roca.

The Cabo da Roca, Cape Roca, is where the Sintra Mountains just north and west of Lisbon, collide with the Atlantic Ocean, making it the westernmost point of continental Europe. We all commented about the very northern California feel of the coast, with cliffs, similar vegetation and a vast ocean, not the Pacific, but the Atlantic, spread before us.

The drive from the Pena Palace to the lighthouse at Cabo da Roca.

Heading south along the coast, we drove the “Malibu” section (our guide’s words to describe the area) with very high-end estates looking out over the Atlantic, and just a short drive or train ride to Lisbon.

On the left is our Thanksgiving snack of Sintra pastries that are filled with a light custard. On the right is our Thanksgiving lunch in Cascais at a restaurant. No turkey, but there were sweet potatoes and potatoes in the form of housemade chips.

The guide had booked us lunch at a modest café overlooking the waterfront in Cascais where we started the first of our Thanksgiving feasts at a long table that allowed us to share our chosen Portuguese dishes. From pork with garlic and spices, to octopus salad, to Portuguese gazpacho soup, to bolinhos de bacalhau (cod fritters). The only semi-Thanksgiving dish was a side of “chips” which were housemade potato, sweet potato, and beet chips served with a Portuguese dipping sauce. They were delicious and colorful.

The vans deposited us back in Lisbon and we headed to our Airbnb to plan our next adventure for the day. As evening fell, we decided to explore our surroundings. Our Airbnb is in the middle of the Bairro Alto neighborhood which is a mix of street art, cafés, and tiny boutiques. Close by are larger, highe-end shops and large public squares. It is full of life by day and magical at night.

Christmas lights are every where. In the first photo, I caught the backs of the Douglas family all holding hands walking down the festive Lisbon street close to our Airbnb. In the opening of the lit-up fairy castle are Mary and Ellen posing for a sister moment. The bottom photo shows Rossio square that is filled with Christmas fair booths of food and crafts.

Arriving just a month before Christmas, the decorations were just being lit for the first time and the whole of Lisbon was out to enjoy the beginning of the season. Some of the larger streets had sound and light shows playing to familiar Christmas tunes. Projected against large buildings were Christmas figures dancing to the music. Everyone was out to walk the streets and enjoy the spirit surrounding them.

Turning a corner, we came across Rossio square where a street fair of food booths were set up. There were several booths with our favorite Portuguese sandwich, the bifana, which is thinly sliced marinated pork with a spiced sauce on an oversized, delicious bun, but there were oh so many other choices of meats, breads, cheeses, sangria, olives, sweets, craft beers, pastries, pizzas, mulled wine, dried fruit, candied nuts, seafood on a stick, sausages…the choices seemed endless as we walked around the booths trying to make decisions.

“Show off your Thanksgiving dinner!” Ellen and Ryan with hot mulled wine; Wendy, Skylar, Sophia, and Gage with yummies; a pork belly sandwich that was shared by many; Skylar with his sausage sandwich, me with my pork belly sandwich; plus a shot of what was happening behind us to give a feel for our Thanksgiving dinner venue.

In the end, some of us would make a choice, we would offer samples of our choice and others would either get another or move to another booth. There were tables, but we mostly just grazed our way through the lights and aromas and music that surrounded us. There was no turkey or stuffing, but one could argue there were some gravies or sauces that could qualify for Thanksgiving fare.

The artist who crafted our “placeholder” ring. Nick puts “rings” me…This ring can easily be tightened, just in case…

Once we our bellies were full, we headed towards our Airbnb but came across another square where there were more booths, this time with crafts and merchandise. Passing a booth with jewelry, Nick and I were distracted by the thought of a “placeholder” ring to replace my wedding ring that is somewhere in the streets of Barcelona. We found one.

When we get back to the states, our plan is to order a new ring from our friend Suzanne, a jewelry designer who lives in Bremen, Germany. We met Suzanne and Jan-Bernd in New Zealand two years ago on our Whanganui canoe adventure. At the beginning of this trip, we met them in Brussels for a week. We are hoping to work out a design with Suzanne.

In that square there was also a DJ with music blasting. Our teenagers started to dance and soon we had a multigenerational dance troupe bee-bopping (yes, I am that old) to the techno-Euro music.

Dancing in the streets on Thanksgiving night. Rohnan showed us his moves while David, Mary, and Ellen watched. Then the family created a circle and most of us joined in. By the end there was a conga line with Gage holding on to Santa and the rest of us following.

We were with family. We were in Portugal. We had spent the day together on adventures. We had eaten delicious, if not exotic foods. We had music. We were dancing. We were laughing…and we were all together minus those we love left back in the USA. This was Thanksgiving in its purest form.

©2025 Wendy Platt Hill