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Sintra – Explore by Yourself.

Obviously, Lisbon is a fantastic, wonderful and fascinating city, which deserves to be visited, known and felt, but Sintra is undoubtedly a must-visit place.

For this reason, I advise everyone who visits Lisbon and who will be here for more than 2 days, that one of those days has to be to visit Sintra.

I also do bike tours in Sintra, which is actually my favorite tour near Lisbon, but as I can only do it if booked well in advance, I decided to make this post to “make life easier” for those who want to explore this wonderful place for yourself.

Sintra is a mountain, classified as a Natural Park, located about 25 km from Lisbon.

In this mountain, which borders the Atlantic and where the westernmost point of Europe, Cabo da Roca, is located, there are thousands of centenary trees, which makes this area of unique natural beauty, something that originated many kings, queens and famous people from all over the world, linked to culture, arts and culture come here for their holidays.

The arrival of these people did something that even more charmed the whole area, the appearance of wonderful castles, palaces and gardens. Sintra is so beautiful and everything is so well framed that it is currently called the Fairy Tale Land.

Here are my tips for those who want to explore Sintra alone:

1 – Leave Lisbon early so that you have time to visit as many places as possible:

2 – The trip from Lisbon to Sintra takes around 35/40 minutes by train and costs around €5.00 round trip, the train station in Lisbon is Rossio;

3 – Walking from the train station in Sintra to the center of the town is about 650 meters, where you can/should make a strategic stop to have a coffee and taste a Queijada de Sintra at the Casa da Sapa pastry shop;

4 – After this halfway break you will arrive at the village of Sintra which you will be tempted to visit right away, but my advice is that you leave that for later, for lunch, and that you head straight away to the Regaleira Palace (20 minutes on foot).

The Regaleira Palace is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating monuments I know and its gardens, where there is a well that you can descend to the bottom and its numerous cellars, are a real wonder.

The price of the visit is €10 for adults, €5 for 6 to 17 years old and 65 to 79 years old.

5 – After the visit to Palácio da Regaleira it should be lunch time and there should be some desire to rest a little, so it's time to visit the village of Sintra and find a place to eat there. But dessert should be a “Travesseiro” at the Piriquita pastry.

6 – The Pena Castle, this is another must-visit point.

Located at the top of the mountain with its strong colors (yellow, blue and red), with its wonderful tile panels and numerous sculptures, it is the authentic castle of a fairy tale, which reminds us of Disney's Castle.

Once again, especially if it's a sunny day, you'll be surprised by so much beauty and fantasy.

To get there you have several options, you can go on foot (+/- 5 km), a difficult trail (always going up = 1.5h), but wonderful, by bus or in a tuck-tuck.