Best neighborhoods in Sintra

6 areas in Sintra, Portugal — what each one feels like, who it suits, and roughly what it costs.

• Estefânia ($) — Workaday, station-side, real shops Best for Budget, transport. The grid around Avenida Dr. Miguel Bombarda, five to ten minutes downhill from the station and fifteen from the old town. Where Sintra's residents actually eat and park, which guidebooks skip entirely — and why the restaurants take a 20:00 booking without a fuss. Getting around: Sintra station is here; walk to the centre or pick up the 434 at the station stop
• Praia das Maçãs & Azenhas do Mar ($) — Riverine sand, cliffside white houses Best for Beaches, seafood. Avenida Eugene Levy at Praia das Maçãs, and the terraces above the sea at Azenhas do Mar. Azenhas do Mar is the photograph everyone has seen and is a cluster of houses on a cliff, not a resort — you come for lunch, not a week. Getting around: Car, or the historic Sintra tram from Estefânia, about 11km and 45 minutes
• Centro Histórico ($$) — Cobbled, palatial, permanently thronged Best for Sightseeing, walking. The lanes off Praça da República — Rua das Padarias, Rua Consiglieri Pedroso, Rua Gil Vicente — put the National Palace, Piriquita and the 434 stop three minutes away. Guidebooks call it a town; it is a few hundred metres of street absorbing coach traffic all day, and you sleep on the streets everyone queues on. Getting around: Walk. Cars are not authorised up to Pena or the Moorish Castle at all, so it is the 434 bus or the footpaths
• Seteais & Monserrate ($$) — Palace road, gardens, no pavement Best for Romance, gardens. Rua Barbosa du Bocage runs west past Quinta da Regaleira and Seteais before becoming the road to Monserrate. It looks like a stroll on a map and is not — the road is narrow, largely pavement-free and busy with tour traffic, and Monserrate is 4km out. Getting around: The 435 bus or Carris Metropolitana 1253; cars are allowed here, unlike on the Pena road
• São Pedro de Penaferrim ($) — Uphill village, market square, calmer Best for Families, food. Praça D. Fernando II is a genuine village square with its own restaurants, fifteen to twenty minutes uphill from the centre. Not walking distance to the palaces in any useful sense, and the walk back is uphill — but dinner is not a scrum. Getting around: Fifteen minutes down to the centre, uphill coming back; bus or car otherwise
• Colares & Praia Grande ($) — Vineyards, cliffs, surf, wind Best for Wine, surfing. Inland Colares village and the beach strip at Praia Grande, ten to fifteen kilometres from the historic centre. Nothing here is walkable from Sintra town and no palace bus reaches it — this is the half of Sintra the day-tripper never sees. Getting around: A car, strongly preferred, or a Carris Metropolitana ride

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