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Sintra itinerary

Every place in “10 Best Things to Do in Sintra”. Save places in the guide to make this list yours.

  1. 1

    Pena Palace - Portugal's Most Photographed Romanticist Palace

    Pena Palace (Palacio Nacional da Pena) crowns the highest ridge above Sintra at 480 metres, painted in the yellow and terracotta red that turns up in every photograph of the town. King Ferdinand II commissioned it in…

    Address
    Estrada da Pena, 2710-609 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, then Scotturb 434 bus to the Pena Palace gate, about 20 minutes
  2. 2

    Quinta da Regaleira - The Initiation Well and Its Underground Tunnels

    Quinta da Regaleira is the estate that Brazilian millionaire Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro built between 1904 and 1910 with Italian architect Luigi Manini. The house itself is handsome enough. The gardens are the…

    Address
    R. Barbosa du Bocage 5, 2710-567 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 435 bus to the main gate, or a 10-minute walk from the historic centre
  3. 3

    Castelo dos Mouros - Ninth-Century Ramparts With the Widest View in Sintra

    The Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros) predates everything else on this list. Muslim builders raised it in the 8th and 9th centuries as a lookout over the Atlantic approach to Lisbon, and Afonso Henriques took it in…

    Address
    Estrada da Pena, 2710-405 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 434 bus to the Castelo dos Mouros stop, about 15 minutes
  4. 4

    Sintra National Palace - The Twin Chimneys in the Middle of Town

    Sintra National Palace (Palacio Nacional de Sintra) is the one you can reach without a bus. Its two white conical kitchen chimneys, 33 metres tall, have defined the town skyline since the 15th century. This is the…

    Address
    Largo Rainha Dona Amelia, 2710-616 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, 15-minute walk down Volta do Duche, or one stop on the Scotturb 434 bus
  5. 5

    Monserrate Palace - Mughal Domes and a Garden of 3,000 Plant Species

    Monserrate Palace repays the extra bus ride. Sir Francis Cook, an English textile merchant, rebuilt it in 1858 to a design by James Knowles that borrows Mughal domes, Moorish arcades and Gothic tracery, then had the…

    Address
    Estrada de Monserrate, 2710-405 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 435 bus to the Monserrate stop, about 20 minutes
  6. 6

    Parque da Pena - 200 Hectares of Imported Forest Below the Palace

    Most visitors photograph Pena Palace and leave, which means the 200-hectare park below it stays quiet all day. Ferdinand II planted it from the 1840s with species shipped in from across the Portuguese empire: North…

    Address
    Estrada da Pena, 2710-609 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 434 bus to the Parque da Pena main gate, about 20 minutes
  7. 7

    Cabo da Roca - The Westernmost Point of Continental Europe

    Cabo da Roca is where the European mainland runs out. Cliffs drop 140 metres straight into the Atlantic, a red-topped lighthouse has worked the headland since 1772, and a stone monument carries Camoes' line about the…

    Address
    Estrada do Cabo da Roca, 2705-001 Colares, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 403 bus towards Cascais, about 40 minutes to the Cabo da Roca stop
  8. 8

    Praia da Adraga and Praia Grande - Atlantic Beaches Below the Cliffs

    Two beaches sit within a few kilometres of each other on the Colares coast, and they serve different purposes. Praia da Adraga is the smaller and more dramatic - a curve of sand hemmed in by black rock stacks and a…

    Address
    Praia da Adraga, 2705-063 Colares, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, Scotturb 441 bus to Almocageme then a 25-minute walk down to Praia da Adraga; the 441 stops at Praia Grande directly
  9. 9

    Convento dos Capuchos - A 16th-Century Monastery Lined With Cork

    Convento dos Capuchos is the oddest place in the Serra de Sintra and the least visited on this list. Franciscan friars founded it in 1560 and lined the cells, doorframes and corridors with cork slabs for insulation…

    Address
    Estrada dos Capuchos, 2710-405 Colares, Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    No Scotturb route serves it; taxi or rideshare from Sintra train station, roughly 20 minutes
  10. 10

    Sintra Historic Centre - Travesseiros, Queijadas and the Old Streets

    The town itself deserves more than the twenty minutes most day-trippers give it. Sintra Vila is a compact grid of cobbled lanes below the National Palace, and it is where the two pastries worth crossing the country for…

    Address
    Rua das Padarias 1, 2710-603 Sintra, Portugal
    Nearest transit
    Sintra train station, 15-minute walk downhill along Volta do Duche, or the Scotturb 434 bus to the Centro Historico stop

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