Things to do
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Cabo da Roca
The westernmost point of mainland Europe: a headland of cliffs 140 metres high with a lighthouse, a stone cross and a plaque quoting Camões on where the land ends and the sea begins. The wind is strong on most days and the cliff edges are unfenced beyond the viewpoint. Buses run from Sintra and from Cascais. Sunset draws a crowd out from Cascais.
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Castle of the Moors
A ruined fortification from the period of Muslim rule, its walls snaking along two rocky summits above the town among boulders and pines. There is nothing inside but the walk itself, along the battlements and up uneven steps to the keep. The reward is the view: Pena on the next peak, the town below and the ocean beyond. High wind makes the exposed wall walk unpleasant and occasionally closes it.
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Monserrate Palace
An English textile magnate built this domed Moorish-Gothic villa in 1858, with lace-like plaster corridors, and surrounded it with a botanical garden planted by continent: Mexican agaves, Australian tree ferns, a Himalayan valley. It lies four kilometres west of town on its own bus route. Few day trippers reach it, which makes it the calm choice for a second stop.
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Pena Palace
A German prince married to the Portuguese queen built this summer palace in the 1840s on the ruin of a hilltop monastery, mixing Moorish arches, Gothic turrets and a Triton gateway, all painted red and yellow. The royal family left in 1910 and the rooms remain as they were. Interior entry is by timed ticket. On foggy days, which Sintra has plenty of, the terraces see nothing at all.
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Quinta da Regaleira
A coffee millionaire with a taste for Masonic and Templar symbolism commissioned this estate around 1900 from an Italian opera set designer. The garden is the attraction: grottoes, towers, a lake crossed by stepping stones, and a well twenty-seven metres deep with a spiral stair, never meant for water. Tunnels lead from its floor to other parts of the grounds, and they drip, so wear shoes that can get wet.
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Sintra National Palace
The white palace in the town centre with two giant conical kitchen chimneys, in continuous royal use from the fifteenth century to the nineteenth. Its rooms are named for their painted ceilings: swans in one, and in another a magpie for each lady of the court, a king's joke about gossip. The tilework is among the oldest in the country. Unlike Pena, it rarely has a queue.