Sintra and Cascais Private Day Tour

Sintra and Cascais Day Trip Itinerary

Hotel pick up
Pena Palace
Sintra Old Town
Cape of Roca
Cascais Bay and Beach (free time for lunch - own expense)
Estoril Coast return to Lisbon
Hotel drop off

Sintra and Cascais Day Trip from Lisbon

Lisbon hotel pick up

The guide will meet you at your hotel in Lisbon to begin the Sintra and Cascais Tour. While heading west (40m trip), hear the whole story behind the magic Sintra and how, in the 19th-century, became the center of European romanticism architecture.

Pena Palace: Private guided tour inside

Once you get to Sintra, enjoy a mystical drive by its forested hillsides. At the top, walk the Pena Park (optional - shuttle available) and visit the palace with your private guide, making history come alive with historical knowledge and court intrigues of ancient times.

Explore Sintra Old Town

After, you will have the chance to explore Sintra Old Town and taste some local delicacies like the "queijadas" and "travesseiros" (pastry). You can take your time walking its cobblestoned narrow streets, full of little shops with traditional Portuguese products.

Cabo da Roca (Cape Roca): Hilltop oceanviews

You will then continue to the westernmost point of Europe, the Cabo da Roca (Cape Roca), where "the land ends and the sea begins".

Cascais bay for a fresh seafood lunch

On the way to Cascais, you will then pass the Guincho beach. Take a slow stroll around the charming bay of Cascais with its beach, have lunch (own expense) and enjoy the surrounding coastline.

Lisbon hotel drop off

Your day trip ends with a return to Lisbon through the gorgeous Estoril coast.

More about the Pena Palace
Sintra and Cascais Day Trip

Pena Palace is the essence of the Romanticism in Portugal

In the 19th century, Ferdinand II - consort king of Portugal, husband of Queen Maria II - turned a ruined 16th-century monastery into a castle-like palace where the new Romanticism style was displayed.

With clear influences from the Manueline, Gothic, Moorish and Renaissance styles of architecture, it was built on the peak of the Sintra hills, to be seen from any part of its park.

Park of Pena is the most important arboretum in Portugal

The park, more like a forest, holds over five hundred different species of trees, brought in from all over the world. To create this exotic park, Ferdinand II took advantage of the mild and humid climate of the Sintra hills.

Sintra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Pena Palace is part of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra, classified by UNESCO as World Heritage Site in 1995. Other beautiful villas, built in the same style in the surrounding hills, created a unique combination of parks and gardens that influenced the development of landscape architecture throughout Europe.

More about Cascais
Sintra and Cascais Day Tour

Columbus disembarked in Cascais on his return from America

It was in the bay of Cascais that Christopher Columbus disembarked on his return from his first trip to America, on the morning of March 4th, 1493. The caravel on which Columbus was traveling, returning to Castile, almost sank off the coast of Cascais. It was the people from Cascais who helped him. This accidental stop allowed the Portuguese king, John II, to learn about the news that Columbus brought to the Castilian crown.

Cascais was the Court's beach

An elitist destination, it achieved Court Beach Status in 1867 thanks to Queen Maria Pia. Italian by birth, Portuguese by marriage, the queen chose Cascais for the sea baths of princes Carlos and Afonso. Famous as a seaside resort, Cascais earns the nickname "Riviera of Portugal". It was the favorite destination of Portuguese and foreign elites from the 19th century onwards.

Cascais has always been a refuge from wars

In 1936, several refugees from the Spanish Civil War arrived. Later, World War II brought several foreigners, especially after the invasion of France in 1940, who hoped to embark for America.

After the war, the town became a place of exile for European royalty, with the arrival of the Counts of Barcelona, King Humberto II of Italy, Queen Joan of Bulgaria, King Charles II of Romania, the Regent of Hungary Admiral Miklós Horthy and, later, of several Archdukes, including Otto of Habsburg, of Austria-Hungary. Also the Dukes of Windsor Edward VIII of Great Britain and Wallis Simpson.

But not only royal families, also the writer Stefan Zweig, the aviator and author of The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the economist John Maynard Keynes, the American broadcast journalist and war correspondent Edward Murrow, the british actor and filmmaker Leslie Howard, Alexander Alekhine (one of the best chess players of all time), the future Prime Minister of India Indira Nehru, or even the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Baptista.

James Bond was born in Estoril

During the Second World War, Cascais was scene of espionage, counter-espionage, intelligence gathering and mutual surveillance. James Bond, Ian Fleming's character, appeared when the author served as a special agent serving the allies, in Estoril. And his first book, Casino Royale, was directly inspired by Estoril and its casino.