Sintra, Sorta

Our plan for today was to spend the whole day in Sintra, located about an hour west of Lisbon. The town is located at the edge of the Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais, a national park that covers about 55 square miles and extends over the Serra de Sintra Mountain Range to the west coast of Portugal. Many Lisbon visitors take day trips to Sintra to see the small historic town center and the half dozen famous cultural sites, some dating back to the 11th century, located in the hills around the town. We had an easy time getting to town, taking the metro to the train which drops you right in the middle of the historic town center. And guess what? The Sintra Cultural Landscape is yet another UNESCO World Heritage place!

 The Castle of the Moors site waaaay up on top of the mountain 

I read lots of tour sites and blogs to get tips about the best way to see Sintra, since most of the cultural sites are 20 to 50 minutes (walking) apart and ALL of them are on the slopes of or on top of a mountain. There are lots of large and small tour groups that take you to each location but we decided to do our own thing. Our first stop was the National Palace of Sintra, a building originally started in the 1400s and home to Portuguese kings and queens for hundreds of years.


Next stop was a 20 minute (all uphill) walk to the Quinta da Regaleira. This site includes expansive landscaped grounds with lush forests with stone grottoes, towers, ponds, and bridges built in the mid eighteenth century. The site also includes an ornate chapel and house built to resemble medieval and Gothic buildings.


One of the highlights of the property is the Initiation Well, a stone tower with a spiral staircase that descends into the ground and ends at a series of carved tunnels. Not a well at all. 


The design incorporates mystical elements, symbols, and architecture connected to Freemasonry and the Knights Templar, and for any Curse of Oak Island fans- the gang visited this site a few seasons ago. By the time we got here, it had gotten really humid, the rain had started and fog was rolling in. Water was dripping down the open top of the staircase which really added to the other-wordly feeling.

We had planned to continue up the mountain to the Pena Palace and Castle of the Moors, but they were going to be about a 50 minute walk up the mountain from where we were and the weather was looking like it would get worse. A public bus shuttle makes stops at the different sites, but it doesn't run very often and we were worried that our weather window was closing, so we hired one of the many electric tuk tuks waiting at each of the bus stops. Our driver told us that since the pedicabs aren't allowed in the historic town center, we'd need to wrap around the mountain and enter Pena Palace from the opposite side. The ride took longer but we were treated to a real view of the Sintra Park along steep, winding narrow, roads and got to see several other parts of the town that aren't on the tour. 

Tuk Tuk Time!


By the time we got to the top, the fog had completely obscured everything around us and the wind was making the rain blow horizontally. There were actually quite a lot of people waiting to go on the tour, so clearly this is a destination site and we weren't the only people who decided to just go for it. The palace started life in the 12th century as a monastery,  but in the 1830s became the home of King Ferdinand, who expanded the structure and added medieval-styled features and bright colors. The palace is one of the features on almost every Portugal tourism site and visually unique. Unfortunately, there were absolutely no good views of the Pena Palace colors and no views of anything else.   

Here's what you want to see







Here's what we saw (and only while we were standing right under it)

Oh well. We enjoyed the tour of the interior but then didn't even attempt to get over to the Moorish Castle because it wasn't even visible from the path leading to it. Still a great visit and we were both glad we went. Not to mention the exercise- my phone says we climbed the equivalent of 70 floors today! 

Tomorrow moring we leave Lisbon and head north and west to Porto.

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