A day visit to Sintra
We’re on a tour of Portugal in early May and have just left the west coast for a day visit to Sintra.
Arriving to this popular destination on a warm sunny morning, we’re unsure what to expect. The newer town is below the attractions of the older part of town, which is on the mountain above. Here are walking trails between two palaces, which are positioned on the mountain.
One of these is The Palace of Pena. Apparently, this was the first romantic palace in Europe, built 30 years before Neuschwanstein Palace near Fussen in Germany. This stands on a rocky outcrop at the top of a parkland of walkways in the Pena Park forest. It’s a fairytale style castle, planned by King Ferdinand and built in 1840.
The other attraction is the National Palace or town Palace as it’s known, situated in the old part of town. Its iconic twin 108ft high conical chimneys, painted in white are quite a sight in the town.
Trying to park – A day visit to Sintra
Now to the important part – trying to park. We don’t expect so much traffic, mainly because so far on this tour of Portugal, it’s been pretty quiet. The roads are chaotic, so we don’t attempt to drive closer to the main attractions.
The approach roads are narrow and hilly to add to the already manic traffic. So trying to access in our campervan isn’t good idea, despite its relatively compact 6m length.
Instead, we stick to the more modern, lower town, but the parking areas here are just as chaotic.
We attempt to park in a couple of parking areas. However, it turns out to be one of those moments when we’re unsure if we’ll actually get out. All spaces are full and people have parked outside of the parking bays, making turns really tight or inaccessible.
Eventually, we do make it out of the exit, but decide not to take another attempt at parking in a car park.
This leaves us the alternative of street parking. Luckily, we find a space just about big enough for us. Unfortunately, the downside is there’s a 4 hour parking limit, which means we can’t hang around.
So, we put money in the machine, take a ticket and dash off towards the old part of town.
Sintra old town
It’s a 30 minute walk into Sintra old town and the first palace, the Palacio Nacional de Sintra. By this stage, we’ve seen the chaotic scenes on the narrow roads and car parks whilst on foot and we’re glad we didn’t think about coming this close in the camper.
There are so many tourists here with coach after coach, taxi’s, tuk tuk type shuttle’s and no room to manoeuvre.
However, when we reach the old town, it’s really rather lovely, with the white wash 14th century palace and its 2 chimney’s displaying a fine backdrop on the approach.
We haven’t time to go inside the palace, but it’s good to see from the outside and take a look around the narrow town streets surrounding the entrance.
We do want to walk between the two palaces though and know there’s a marked trail linking the two from town.
Walking trail between the palaces
We find the walking trail markers in town and follow the circular route, which is the 2/3 red/yellow marked walk, taking us uphill through Sintra old town.
Cobble streets and woodland trails lead us upwards on a gradual steep path up the mountain. The leafy trail joins thick forest where spring flowers bloom, bringing us to the fortified walled Castle of Mouros.
This moorish castle with walls built across the mountain above Sintra dates back to the 10th century.
From here, we continue upwards, where we arrive at the higher Palace of Pena. We weren’t sure what to expect here, but it turns out, it’s really busy with visitors queuing for entry on a narrow road.
Unfortunately, we can’t really see much of the castle at all due to its position and the trees. It’s disappointing, but perhaps we should have done a bit of research before coming.
At the end of the day it’s too busy for us to pay for entry to explore, due to only having 4 hours parking! This means, despite doing the pleasant but hilly walk between the palaces, we aren’t going to get to see them in any detail.
The traffic on this higher section of Sintra is just as chaotic, so we have to be careful making our way along any road sections on the way back down to town.
Sintra is perhaps a place to plan
So Sintra, is one of those places that caught us out. Firstly, we weren’t expecting such a tourist hot spot and then we thought parking was going to be a little easier.
Our visit during the first week of May also proved to fool us slightly. That’s because, despite having been touring Portugal for some weeks, we’d had most places to ourselves so far.
Nonetheless, Sintra is perhaps a place to plan before visiting, especially for those really wanting to go inside the Palace.
With this in mind, it’s probably a good idea to book tickets in advance for entry to avoid disappointment.
Our 4 hours street parking, thankfully gave us just enough time to see the old town and walk the trail between the palaces though, and it was a good introduction to this obviously popular destination.
There is a train station in Sintra, so maybe parking or stopping overnight elsewhere in the campervan and taking a train is an option worth looking into.
For us, it was time to drive onwards and leave the crowds of Sintra behind. We’re in need of filling up the water tanks and emptying, and know there’s a dump place and overnight parking area at Mafra.
More on Mafra next time. For now, thanks for reading ‘A day visit to Sintra’!
