One of the many amazing things about Sintra is the number of “sintras” that there are in that one town, at any given time. Visit it on a sunny warm day and you have a happy town. Visit it when the weather’s not so nice and you have this sort of eerieness that is, at the same time, spooky and attractive. You have the old neighbourhoods with the stone houses and the majestic and ostentatious monuments, palaces and castles. The gorgeous wide gardens and the skinny cobblestone streets. The untouched Unesco patrimony (Sintra is a Unesco World Heritage Site and you can read why here) and the graffitied ruins.

It’s little wonder it has been the setting of so many novels. If you’re in Lisbon, Sintra is one of the best day-trips you can choose to do. Visit the castle, the palace, Quinta da Regaleira, eat Queijadas de Sintra… but don’t forget to also go off the beaten track and check out the stuff that exists beyond the monuments.