Sintra & Cabo de Roca, Portugal Travel Diary
Now let’s travel to a real life fairy tale town and the prettiest place I ever did see! My favorite city of the whole trip: Sintra! Also, since we took a little detour to a surprise spot, I’ll share some pictures of that too!
Unfortunately this was only a half day trip and I really wish our tour would have included a whole day here (two days in Lisbon would have been enough). I’m pretty sure about 80% of the group would agree too! But Sintra is now on my list of places to visit again and I can’t wait to share with y’all this charming little town!
Sintra’s Charm
We went to Sintra for a wine tasting, and because of this, we had limited time in Sintra. Sintra is about a 30 min drive from Lisbon and I knew as soon as the bus drove up that this was no ordinary town. We drove into the city square and were greeted by the Palácio Nacional de Sintra. Unfortunately, due to our time constraint, I was not able to tour this palace. We also did not get to visit the castle at the very top of the hill, Castelo dos Mouros, but I can just imagine what the views were from there! Like I said, Sintra is a fairy tale town!
Here’s what I did get to see:
>Palácio e Quinta da Regaleira
The whole walk up to this palace was absolutely stunning! I seriously felt like I was in Beauty and the Beast! And because we weren’t on tour or had bought our tickets beforehand, we did have to wait in line a little bit. The grounds were beautiful! The trees, flowers, architecture – it all came together to make you feel like royalty! The entire palace is huge and we didn’t get to check out every nook and cranny 🙁 because you could literally get lost in there for a whole day. Not to mention photo ops at every corner…
>Bacalhau na Vila
We were able to have lunch in Sintra which was really nice. We actually found this place by accident as we were taking some pictures of hydrangeas and looking at the shops. This place was so cute and the staff was so nice! I ordered the Spinach Cream Soup with Codfish and it was delicious! Unfortunately, I saw that soup again a few hours later, more on that in a bit…
>Wine Tasting at Adega Viúva Gomes
This excursion was actually booked through EF and included the bus trip to Sintra and the wine tasting. We had the pleasure of going to Adega Viúva Gomes and meet an amazing host with extensive knowledge of wine, corks, and the process behind it all!
Y’all, this was the part of the tour that I was most excited about! I love wine! Unfortunately, as fate would have it, things did not work out as planned. You see, in order to get to the cellar, we had to go up and down about 30 minutes of winding roads and hills. The scenery was beautiful and I realized there was more to Sintra than the parts we saw (another reason to go back!). However, something about all the stops and turns gave me motion sickness! I’ve been on buses before so I don’t know why it happened to me! Remember that delicious Spinach Cream Soup? Well I ended up throwing that up at the cellar and had no stomach for wine! Oh it was horrible! Our host was so nice and brought me sparkling water, which helped tremendously, however, we still had to drive back to Lisbon after the wine tasting and I had to go through this all over again! *cry*
For those of you wondering, I don’t think it was the soup that made me sick because we took another bus tour a few days later and I felt sick again! And yes I took a motion sickness pill, and drank a lot of water, AND sat at the front… But let’s such say I didn’t eat much seafood for the rest of the trip. Just to be safe!
Cabo de Roca
We ended up taking a little detour to a very important point in Lisbon. You see, Cabo de Roca is the westernmost point of continental Europe! Back in the day, when they used to think the world was flat, this was the point where they believed you would fall off the earth if you continued on to the ocean…
As we know now, that is not the case. However, it does provide for some amazing views and photo ops! But ladies, be careful! The wind is no joke up there!
After our adventures in Sintra and Cabo de Roca we headed back to Lisbon to pack for Madrid!
Y’all have no idea how excited we were for Spain! It truly is a magnificent country! Keep checking back each week for more on this trip, we have four more cities to visit!
If you missed my recap of Lisbon, you can check it out here!
Real quick I want to share the jacket I used in Sintra and Cabo de Roca. It is from Free People and I absolutely love it! It’s lightweight but still offers great protection from the cold breeze (like in Cabo de Roca!). Spain was warmer than Portugal so I didn’t use it as much, but with Fall coming up, it’s a great piece to add to your wardrobe!
XO, Mayra
