It would have been nice to sleep in after our Taylor Swift concert, but our travel time was too limited and we had too much to see! We didn’t get up super early, but we wanted to go to Sintra before leaving Lisbon, so we had a hotel breakfast and then went to the train station to try and catch a train to Sintra.

Sintra is only 45 minutes outside of Lisbon and it is a popular tourist destination. There are a few options for how to get there and we just relied on Google to select the best one. Getting the train ticket was a little confusing and we were tight on time – the automated machines are very outdated, so I recommend just lining up to get a paper ticket. By the time we caught the train and got to the main station in Sintra, it was around 11am. 

Sintra is an interesting place – there’s a small town with a very quaint historic centre, but it felt more like a collection of historic sites scattered around the surrounding mountainside. The roads to each site are very narrow and winding, so the traffic can get quite bad. Sintra is a full day excursion, so I definitely recommend getting there earlier than we did. I’d aim for 9am rather than 11am. 

An earlier arrival would have allowed us to get at least one historic site in before the crowds, but no such luck. There are 5 key sites people like to see: the National Palace, Regaleira Park, Monserrate Park, Pena Palace, and the Moorish Castle. If you include the historic centre, then I guess there’s actually 6 sites. The cheapest way to get around is to buy a day pass for the two tourist buses (one pass). One bus goes to the National Palace/City Centre, Pena Palace, and Moorish Castle, while the other bus also goes to the National Palace/City Centre, and the two parks. The first bus runs really frequently (every 10-15 minutes), while the second bus runs every 30 minutes.

Given that there are so many sites, it’s recommended to get timed entries online. We booked the Regaleira Park online, but it’s just general admission all day and there was no line, so it didn’t save us much time. But we also had timed entry to Pena Palace and I don’t think we would have been able to go into the palace without pre-purchasing that ticket.

Because our timed entry to Pena Palace was at 2:30pm, we decided to do Quinta da Regaleira first. This was a bit annoying because we just missed the bus and the next one was late coming, but we made it to the park shortly before noon. The park is really nice and we liked exploring it, but one thing I found was missing in Sintra was large scale context. There was information about the interesting features in the park, but the signage failed to answer the general question “why is all this here?”

Quinta da Regaleira is basically a huge park with all kinds of unique engineering and architectural features spread out around the park. We later asked our tuktuk driver about it and he explained that the land has had various wealthy owners over the years who have built up the infrastructure, particularly when it went through the ownership of the freemasons. At some point, it was designated as a park and is part of the greater Sintra UNESCO world heritage site, which was established in 1995.

There is a lot to explore in the park, but I would say the two most striking pieces of architecture are the Regaleira Palace and the Initiation Well. The Palace is an ornate building that I believe was constructed as a country home in the 1800’s. The Palace is cool, but the Initiation Well was a much more compelling piece of engineering for me. The rest of the tourists seemed to agree and we had to queue for about 30 minutes just to walk into the well. 

It is a large circular structure with an ornate design and staircase that descends into the earth. It feels very deep when you are going down into the well, but it is built on the hillside, so the perspective of entering from the top of the well contributes to this sense of scale. Once you reach the bottom, you can explore a series of tunnels through the hillside and then you eventually pop out further down the mountain without ever climbing back up any steps. It’s a bit disorientating, but a very cool experience.

When we finished with the park, we decided to give ourselves a lot of time to get to Pena Palace. There’s no overlap in the two bus lines, so to avoid taking 2 buses, we opted to take a tuktuk instead. We thought this would be the faster option, but I’m not really sure. Likely it was faster than waiting for 2 separate buses, but it still took quite a long time because the traffic around the mountain is one way, which means it takes a considerable amount of time to get from the Regaleira to the Palace at midday. 

That said, we had a lot of fun in the tuktuk. It was mildly terrifying, but our driver was very enthusiastic and brought us to a few lookouts along the way before dropping us at the entrance. From there, it’s a 10 minute walk up the mountain to get to Pena Palace. The Palace is extravagant! It’s set atop a rocky outcrop and is painted in bright yellow and red. It’s a striking building and 100% worth visiting. Anyone can walk up to the palace and walk around the grounds, but you have to have an entry ticket to go into the palace. 

We got there just in time for our 2:30pm entry. To be honest, it’s cool to walk inside the castle, but the outside of the palace was visually more interesting to me. The building itself is striking, and you can do a circular walk along the battlements of the palace, which is very cool. I’m glad I got to do both, but if you miss out on the timed entry, I still think it’s worth walking around the outside of the Palace. The building was originally a monastery, but at some point it was taken over by the Portuguese Monarchy as one of their homes. It was incredibly busy. I think it’s always busy, but I’m sure the inordinate number of Swifties visiting the city probably made it worse. 

Our last stop of the day was the Moorish Castle. You can see Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle from all over Sintra and I’m glad we decided to do both. It’s just a 10-minute walk along the road to get to the Moorish Castle from Pena Palace. It was a lot later in the day by the time we got there, so we had no trouble just buying a ticket at the gate and it was relatively empty inside (in comparison to Pena Palace at least).

I think the Moorish Castle was probably my favourite of all the sites we visited. Unlike Pena Palace, which had been converted from monastery to Palace, the Moorish Castle still retained most of its history. It’s the oldest site in Sintra and was constructed in the 12th century. It was primarily a military establishment, but over time it was abandoned as people moved down the mountain to live in what’s now the historic centre. 

The Moorish Castle was my favourite because it felt very old. There’s an ancient chapel and it’s encircled by tall, stone walls and battlements. You can walk around the perimeter of the castle and it felt like very classic castle architecture. The views were amazing and I felt like I was walking around something much more grand. While Pena Palace wouldn’t have existed when the Moorish Castle was built, today there’s a fantastic view of it from the walls. 

We finished the day by taking the bus back to the historic centre. We did a little bit of exploring and sampled Ginja, a local cherry liqueur that’s sold in the street in an edible chocolate cup. It was sweet and we purchased some to take home. I definitely think the historic centre is an attraction on it’s own. It has a lot of beautiful buildings packed onto the hillside and there are tons of little shops and restaurants to explore. So I definitely recommend making time for it if possible.

We found a restaurant for dinner and dined on Feijoada stew and salt cod. During our walking tour in Lisbon, we learned that Newfoundland has actually been borrowing a lot of its cuisine from the Portuguese. Salt cod is very popular in Portugal and we had to listen while our guide explained the process of salt drying cod in the sun and told us that most of Portugal’s fish comes from Norway or Canada, which we are well aware of. So Emily had the cod in Sintra and I had Feijoada, a dish I last had in Brazil. It’s basically a meat stew, but I was intrigued to find a lot of salt meat in it, something also frequently used in Newfoundland cuisine! 

We also sampled the Vino Verde, which is “green wine” and is unique to Portugal. The wine is not actually green of course, it’s a white wine, but the grapes are picked earlier, which is where it takes its name from. After gorging on food and wine, we caught the train back to Lisbon and got back to our hotel around 8pm. So it’s definitely a big day to go to Sintra, but it was a very eventful one! Next up is our trip to the Azores!