Cultural Experiences

Historical monuments

Sintra is the town where the royals spent their summers;  therefore, there are numerous palaces, parks and monuments scattered around the municipality that can be visited.

The most famous ones are the colourful Pena Palace and its park on top of the mountain, the Moorish Castle close to it, the National Palace with the emblematic chimneys in the Historic Center, and the Monserrate palace in the mountain.

All of these and other as beautiful and interesting places are managed by Monte da Lua.  For your convenience, we sell tickets for these at our reception.   Quinta da Regaleira with its initiation garden is also a very interesting place to visit – more information about Regaleira can be found on the site of Cultursintra.

Museums

The museums in Sintra are small and varied in nature, for which reason you can easily plan a visit or two in your stay.  Just to mention a few:  The Sintra Art Museum MU.SA, the News Museum, Anjos Teixeira (sculpture museum), Ferreira de Castro (author’s home museum), the Natural History Museum, the interactive Science workshop, and the Archaeological Museum of Odrinhas.

More information and details can be found here.  It is worth mentioning that all museum entrances are free of charge until the end of 2020 to commemorate the 25 years of Sintra as Unesco’s Cultural Heritage Site.

Concerts / Shows / Theater

The cultural Center Olga Cadaval  hosts a large variety of concerts and shows from music to dance to theatre to stand-up comedy all through the year.  In addition, it hosts the Lisbon / Sintra film festival in November and the Sintra Music Festival in the summer months.  You can see the agenda here.    Sintra has an active theatre scene which you can visit here:  Casa de Teatro.

Many of the monuments and palaces also host musical concerts and art exhibitions in the summer months.

Village Celebrations and Markets

Most every village in the county hosts a celebration of its patron saint during one week in the summer. In addition to religious traditions, they are great places for foods, arts and crafts, and concerts.  They also often include a mini amusement park.

In December, the Liberty Park in the Historical Center is transformed into Christmas Kingdom with activities and a food court for the whole family.