City Guide: Sintra

Sintra is a small town in Portugal, about 25 km in the west of Lisbon. Yet, the beautiful city definitely has importance to “travellovers” or “culturelovers” of this world: Since 1995, it is a UNESCO World Heritage. We have visited the Portuguese town in December and were astonished by its beauty and historic character.

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Getting there from Lisboa is not really difficult with a car. It is not far away and the streets are good. But when arriving in Sintra, you may feel like having arrived in the Alps or any other mountain chain. Small streets, huge altitudes and many curves make driving there or finding a parking lot not the most easy thing to do. But when we finally made it, Sintra was just a wonderful experience.

Feel like walking in a secret fairytale

Sintra deserves being part of the World’s Heritage. Small streets, beautiful old buildings – some abandoned and others looking great –, it really looks like a city in the medieval ages.

Café

Beautiful Building

Small Street

Sintra

View of Sintra

View of Sintra

On top of there is a castle where monarchs lived years before „Schloss Neuschwanstein“, the Fairytalecastle, was even planned to be build. There’s nothing much to say more about the lovely city apart from that it’s absolutely lovely to just stroll around and breath the fresh air and admire the special atmosphere caused by the architecture of the buildings

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Palácio Nacional de Sintra

This is the place where just everyone in Sintra spends time. On the big square in front of the Palácio Nacional de Sintra, you can enjoy a spectacular view on the city.

Palácio

We walked around the Palácio and found some shells on a wall. Even there, it was possible to catch some fantastic views on the other side where some nature can be found.

Abandoned Building

After strolling around for some time, we went back to the car to drive to the Palácio Nacional de Pena. It is located much higher than the city, so it is kind of tough to get there without a car. This would have been a long hike and it was already about to get dark, so the car was the better solution in our case. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get inside (winter break or something like that?!), but here are a few pictures from the outside.

Sintra definitely is worth visiting. It is not so big and there are stunning things to discover, culture and history included. Not to forget about its status as a World’s Heritage! Plus I think that the weather there is always great, at least it was in December with 15 degrees Celsius and sun!