Glorious Eden: A Sintra Walking Tour of Portugal's Royal Mountain

(1 review)

Sintra audio tour: Glorious Eden: A Sintra Walking Tour of Portugal's Royal Mountain

This is a 1.3mi walking tour.

It takes an average of 75 mins to complete.

Sintra

Portugal

$11.99

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About the Tour

Sintra has enchanted writers, kings, and wanderers for centuries, earning descriptions like Glorious Eden and vast temple of Nature. On this walking tour, you'll trace how Moors, medieval monarchs, and Romantic visionaries layered their ambitions onto a single mountain, creating Portugal's most extraordinary cultural landscape.

The tour starts at Sintra's train station, the same arrival point visitors have used since 1889. From there, you'll follow a route through the Dona Estefânia district and into the historic center, passing the neo-Manueline Town Hall, the revived civic pillory, and the open-air sculpture exhibition along Volta do Duche. You'll hear how hermits, Knights Templar, and royal courts each claimed this mountain, and why UNESCO recognized the whole landscape, not just its monuments, as a World Heritage Site in 1995.

Along the way, you'll stop at Casa Piriquita on Rua das Padarias, a family bakery now in its fifth generation, where King Carlos I once encouraged the famous queijadas and the wartime travesseiro pastry was born from necessity. The route climbs toward the Miradouro da Ferraria for panoramic views over the historic center before ending at Parque das Merendas, a shaded picnic park that also serves as the trailhead for those continuing on foot to the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace.

On this 75-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

Admire the iconic twin chimneys of the National Palace of Sintra, a royal residence used by nearly every Portuguese monarch
Hear how the original medieval pillory was demolished with gunpowder by a local blacksmith in 1854
Visit the Moorish Fountain on Volta do Duche, rebuilt in Neo-Moorish style after a road-widening project displaced it
Learn about Quinta da Regaleira's mysterious gardens, designed around Templar and Freemasonry symbolism
Discover how Sintra's Moorish Castle sheltered an entire Islamic community, complete with grain silos carved into the rock
Find out how King Ferdinand II transformed a ruined Manueline monastery into the theatrical Pena Palace

Sintra rewards those who look carefully, and this tour gives you the context to do exactly that.

Tour Producer

GO! Walks Portugal

8 tours

Hi! My name is Sara Cruz, and I live in Coimbra, a charming city in central Portugal that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013.

I hold a degree in Tourism, Leisure and Heritage from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Coimbra, the oldest university in Portugal, founded in 1290. I also completed a postgraduate degree in Musicology, specializing in Portuguese guitar, with a particular focus on its morphology and soundscapes.

In 2012, I founded GO! Walks Portugal with the aim of sharing the rich cultural heritage of my city and region. I began by creating themed walking tours in Coimbra, and by 2015, I had expanded to other parts of the country - especially across Central Portugal, home to some of my favorite monuments and many off-the-beaten-path villages that remain untouched by mass tourism and preserve some of the most important cultural legacies of Portugal.

I speak Portuguese, English, and Spanish fluently, and I truly enjoy welcoming people and showing them the very best my country has to offer. Organizing unique cultural experiences is a big part of why I started working with tourism, and creating these audio tours has been a wonderful challenge that I embraced with heart and soul. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do!

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Preview Location

Location 25

Viewpoint and History of the National Palace 2

What many visitors don't realize is that, for centuries, this square was completely enclosed. Medieval walls, royal buildings, and a large pointed gateway once framed this space. Most of these structures were demolished in the 20th century, before the UNESCO classification of ... What many visitors don't realize is that, for centuries, this square was completely enclosed. Medieval walls, royal buildings, and a large pointed gateway once framed this space. Most of these structures were demolished in the 20th century, before the UNESCO classification of Sintra, during urban interventions that prioritized traffic circulation over historical memory.

Turning your back to the Palace façade, the view opens towards the lower slopes of the Sintra Mountains, dotted with country estates and romantic palaces, each with its own distinctive architectural style.

::

The Palace itself is first mentioned in the 10th century by the Arab geographer, Al-Bakri, together with the castle on the mountain above - today known as the Moorish Castle. At the time, this area called Chão da Oliva was most likely the site of the residence of the Muslim governors of Sintra, although archaeological remains have yet to be identified. In 1147, following the conquest of Lisbon, Sintra surrendered to King Afonso Henriques, marking the end of more than three centuries of Muslim rule. From that moment on, the Palace became one of the most important royal residences in Portugal. Almost every king and queen lived here at some point, leaving their mark on the building. Over time, the palace absorbed different artistic styles, with strong Gothic and Manueline elements, and a remarkable Mudéjar influence, which is the blend of Christian and Islamic artistic traditions clearly visible in the Hispano-Moorish tilework.

One of the earliest documents referring to a Palace here dates from 1281, during the reign of King Dinis. At that time the Palace was still relatively small and included a chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit, a devotion introduced to Sintra by Queen Isabel, later known as the Holy Queen. If you toured Coimbra or Óbidos with me, you've heard about her already! From the Middle Ages onwards, Sintra became closely associated with the Queens of Portugal. The Palace formed part of what was known as the House of the Queens, a vast network of properties, revenues, and people under their authority.

Major transformations took place during the reign of King João I, founder of the Avis dynasty. New ceremonial rooms were built to express royal power, and the Palace was organized around a central courtyard. It was also at this time that the Palace gained its famous kitchen and monumental chimneys. In the early 15th century, the Palace played a discreet but crucial role in history: it was here that King João I received envoys whose mission ultimately helped plan the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, an event that symbolically marked the beginning of Portugal's Discoveries.

The Palace reached its decorative peak under King Manuel I in the 16th century. Much of the Palace's tile decoration dates from this period, when Portugal was benefiting from wealth brought from overseas territories. Later, kings continued to use the Palace regularly, though not always happily. In the 17th century, King Afonso VI was imprisoned here for the last nine years of his life, in a room that can still be visited today! The Palace survived the 1755 earthquake, was adapted to new royal lifestyles in the 19th century, and ceased to be a royal residence after the 1910 Republican Revolution, when Queen Maria Pia left for exile and Monarchy ended. That same year, it was declared a National Monument.

Today, the National Palace of Sintra is part of the UNESCO-listed cultural landscape of Sintra and one of the town's most important cultural landmarks. It's managed by the Parques de Sintra, and continues being restored, studied, and reinterpreted. If you want to visit it inside, you can end the tour and resume when you're ready to continue.

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Major Landmarks

National Palace of Sintra
Casa Piriquita
Piriquita II
Câmara Municipal de Sintra (sede)
Pelourinho de Sintra
Torre do Relógio
Praça da República
Parque das Merendas
Museu Anjos Teixeira
MU.SA - Museu das Artes de Sintra

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Getting There

Route Overview

VoiceMap tours follow a route from a set starting point. It’s how we give turn-by-turn directions and tell a story greater than the sum of its parts.

Start location
2710-523 Sintra, Portugal
Total distance

2km
Final location
R. Victor Carlos Sassetti, 2710-551 Sintra, Portugal
Distance back to start location

701.32m

Directions to Starting Point

This tour starts at Sintra's train station. This is the last stop of the train coming from Lisbon in "Linha de Sintra".

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

I suggest places to stop along the way such as pastry shops. You can also stop the tour to visit monuments and museums that I'll tell you about along the way, and then resume when you wish to continue. At the end of the tour, you'll have the chance to appreciate a nice leisurely area with shade - it's a great spot for a picnic!

Best time of day

I suggest doing this tour early in the morning or after 4pm, when the crowds start going away from Sintra's city center. But you can do it anytime as there isn't the need to enter places - it's a city tour and it will allow you total flexibility.

Precautions

I always tell people to keep their belongings under watch at all times, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. Sintra is quite safe, but you should watch out for pickpockets.

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“This app has become my go-to app for audio tours. I pretty much use it for every trip and it works wonderfully. I highly recommend VoiceMap for travelers to truly experience cities.”

App Store Review

“Great app. walk around at your own pace, stop where you want, move on or speed up when you want. Read the script before you go or during the commentary, speed it up or replay it. Repeat the tour whenever you like.”

Google Play Store

Last Updated

30 Apr 2026

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Glorious Eden: A Sintra Walking Tour of Portugal's Royal Mountain

About the Tour

Tour Producer

GO! Walks Portugal

Save with Passes

Preview Location

Location 25

Viewpoint and History of the National Palace 2

How VoiceMap Works

Major Landmarks

National Palace of Sintra

Casa Piriquita

Piriquita II

Câmara Municipal de Sintra (sede)

Pelourinho de Sintra

Torre do Relógio

Praça da República

Parque das Merendas

Museu Anjos Teixeira

MU.SA - Museu das Artes de Sintra

Getting There

Route Overview

Directions to Starting Point

Tips

Places to stop along the way

Best time of day

Precautions

Get The App

Last Updated

Questions and Reviews