CASA DO VALLE

I have not blogged for awhile for it has been hectic and wonderfully busy. The last month was vey busy with walkers/hikers from Finland who came with the Matkamieli company from Finland. It was a busy, wonderful time, with lots of new things for us as well.  Though we often have groups visiting, rarely groups that take up all of the space for several weeks in a row. It was a marvelous time, I often went along to the hikes, and enjoyed company, other than Pandora, on the walks. I was reminded what a wonderful region this is for hiking, and what varied terraine there is.  One of the days the groups walked through small villages, another through a forest to the other side of the mountain, to Cascais, another yet high up on the cliffs along the Atlantic coast.  In fact I have now mapped many of those walks on Sports Tracker and Map My Walk for the benefit of others, knowing the distances, changes in altitudes and also recording photos of the key spots. So inspired was...

When I think of visiting Sintra, I immediately think of walking & hiking, taking the horse & carriage, maybe even the old tram.  Recently however, I have seen Sintra in two very different ways: both from above. The first was the Sintra Canopy, or the local zip-line.  13 stops, 11 zips and a draw bridge. The trip starts between the entrances of Pena Palace and Moorish Castle, and then zig zags across the valley to the other end of the Moorish Castle. Fantastic views and a whole lot of fun!  I went with two other ladies and we were very well instructed.  Two of us had never done anything like this before.  Mind you, I don't go to the edge of a high balcony, and now I volunteered to stand on a 2x2 m platform 30 m above ground, feeling the tree on which the platform was suspended sway slightly in the wind.   But I felt safe all the time, well looked after.  There were two instructors with us all the time.  One in the front, o...

Gluten free bread for breakfast Many of our guests are still surprised when they order their breakfast and we ask if they prefer gluten or lactose free products - or if they want tomato to substitute the ham when they say they are vegetarian.  This is not common in Portugal.  Though the Portuguese bread is fantastic and cheeses are really tasty, unfortunately many places in Portugal  fail to recognize that there are increasingly many people with a condition that prevents them from enjoying these things, and thus would like an alternative. We seem to make an exception here, offering both lactose free and gluten free products in our breakfasts. There is a similar situation with vegetarian food - if you want anything other than a salad, know that the Portuguese do have excellent soups, and often even the coffee shops have a soup of the day option. Many places in town offer an omelet or a pasta as a vegetarian option, but not so many where you can safely order your ...

'What's with all the trees?' has been a frequent question this year.  In January I was in extreme weather conditions in Finland:  -31C temperatures when driving to the Finnish travel fair.  At the same time Sintra had its own extreme weather, a very rare cyclone, as 130-140 kms/hour winds swept through  Sintra and Lisbon area.  In a few hours Sintra lost roughly 2500 trees.  About a month later, heavy winds hit us again and even more trees went down, weakened allready by the previous storm. 3000 trees is alot.  Yet when you look up the mountain, it looks the same.  It is only when you are actually in the mountain, walking through the parks and the paths that the reality hits you. When I returned from Finland I thought I would give it a few weeks for the workers to clean up and then I would walk up again, and did my morning walks in town and on the beach instead.  Three weeks after the storm, after listening to the chainsaws day in and da...

I have written a lot about walking, visiting and riding the bikes - but what if you are not very mobile?  We recently had two separate clients with a walking stick due to an injury, and also some clients with bad knees.  How did they do?  Well, there are lots of alternative ways to walking in Sintra.  I asked the ladies with the bad knees to share their experiences for the benefit of others in similar situations and this is their account of their holidays.  Hope you enjoy it! It had been well over ten years since I had been to Sintra. Then I was much younger and my knees were so much better.  But getting older and weaker didn´t weaken the attraction of Sintra in my mind. So when my friend expressed her wishes to visit Portugal and especially Sintra, it was not very hard for her to talk me into making travel arrangements.  At first I didn’t even remember how steep the streets are and how everything is built with stairs and steps. I s...

Quinta da Regaleira main palace Regaleira is on the opposite side of the valley   (Updated in January, 2021) One of the most visited places of Sintra, Quinta da Regaleira is opposite of our pool, on the other side of the valley.  It is our guests'  favourite monument to visit in Sintra, maybe because it is easily reachable on foot,  because it is so mysterious  - or just because it is greatly entertaining to the whole family. SHORT HISTORY Quinta da Regaleira never was a royal anything.  A private house, used as a summer residence,  of Carvalho Monteiro, who bought it in 1892 from the barons of Regaleira.  He transformed it to its glory with the famous architect Luigi Manini, known for his theatrical works.  There is a lot to be said about Quinta da Regaleira, or Palácio dos Milhões, as it is also called.  It is beautifully built in neo-manueline style with strong ties to the discoveries - the 4 hectar grounds are beautifully...

Praia da Ursa (Updated in January 2021)  Sintra is not primarily a beach destination, but it does have some great beaches.  Golden sand, beautiful round stones, and magnificent cliffs.  Surfing, tanning, walking.  Great restaurants, dinosaur footprints, paragliding, and fishing. Attention though - the beaches are Atlantic beaches, so the water is not as warm as the Mediterranean ones in the Algarve - and the waves are stronger and more dangerous as well. The long Atlantic Walk (GR11)   passes on the cliffs over all of these beaches.   I will start from the Southern most beaches and work my way up.  Here is a short 2-minute introduction video to the beaches: Praia da Ursa - (Our cover  foto) The double arches resembled  a bear, giving the beach its name (Ursa=Bear) The southernmost of Sintra beaches got its name from a double arch that used be on the beach resembling a bear sculpted by a giant. The beach is accessible by foot only, o...