Accessibility to Sintra's mountain-top palaces

-
Photo credit: João Marrazes
At the same time as Greta Thornberg visited Portugal and stirred the global warming conversation in Portugal, the City of Sintra announced the ban of private car traffic to Sintra mountain, affecting the accessibility to Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle.  An historic city on a mountain, the traffic in Sintra's narrow, hilly streets has become close to chaotic, taking from the charm of the town, as cars queue bumper to bumper and drivers search for scarce parking spots, making the Sintra experience all too stressful. The new traffic rules seem drastic, but are aimed for sustainability and safety for residents and visitors alike.

The traffic from the Historic Center up to the palaces is already one way, the change now is that only authorized vehicles are allowed to drive up.  These are: residents; vehicles of City Hall, Natural Park and Monte da Lua, as well as the utility companies; Licensed tourist transports, taxis and ubers, as well as all security and emergency vehicles.

So how do our visitors reach the palaces? By public transportation, taxi, uber, and other tourist transports,  bicycle and of course on foot. We have a private car park for our guests' vehicles and maps developed by us in both paper and digital format for the beautiful walk to the palaces.  We can also arrange a bicycle hire for you.


Contact us through info@casadovalle.com or tel. 219 244 699 for more information.
Scrolling down you will see the map of the public car parks of  Sintra.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abandoned houses

-
Image
When you walk around Sintra and Lisbon you cannot but notice and wonder about some beautiful old buildings that look like they are abandoned and/or falling apart. It saddens many to see the potential of these houses going to waste just sitting there with broken or boarded up windows, roof half falling and the garden overgrown. Right across the street from us there is one such building and a few times a week I tell people the story of it. As the high fencing and basketball hoop lets you guess, it was 'Escola Academica' still about 20 years ago when we were building and moved here; a small private school. Once a beautiful building, full of life, the school mistress retired, the school lost its license, and for awhile after the death of the old school mistress, a family lived there with no rights to rental. When they were successfully evicted, we thought the house would be soon sold and were looking forward to new neighbors - with no luck until today. Many people wanted to
Read more

Chalet Biester - the film set for Johnny Depp's 'Ninth Gate'

-
Image
Just a bit above the village, in our view, there is a mansion called Chalet Biester.  Its black roof with turquoise trimming causes a lot of questions and awakes the curiosity of many Sintra visitors.  No, it cannot be visited; yes, it is a private house.  No, I don't know who lives there now; yes, it is where the Roman Polanski  thriller ' The Ninth Gate' was filmed, starring Johnny Depp.  There and a bit of everywhere in Sintra. The Chalet Biester as seen from our pool, circled in red Chalet Biester photographed from the Casa da Vista deck Ernesto Biester, a Portuguese journalist and playwright of German origin, famous in his time,  ordered this mansion to be built in around 1880 from the architect José Luis Monteiro.  Its interior was conceived by the famous Italian that worked on Quinta da Regaleira, also in Sintra, and the sceneries of La Scala Opera in Milano, and theater São Carlos in Lisbon: Luigi Manini - and the sculpture Leandro Braga.  Biest
Read more

Oh, the wonderful Pastries and Bread!

-
Image
As I have mentioned before, I frequently walk in the mornings with my dog; up and down the hills, into the forest and mountain roads. Recently there has been an extra burden on my walks. It is lent, the 40 days between Carnival and Easter. Tradition says you give up something for those 40 days that is like an addiction. Some people give up coffee, others chocolate or cigarettes. I decided to give up bread and pastries made with white wheat flour. And this is the reason that climbing up the 400 meters to town is now doubly difficult: the bakeries and pastry shops open their doors even before Pandora and I take off from home, so we walk up to town with the irresistible scent of freshly baked goodies lingering over the town center, calling my name - which I am patiently (more and less) ignoring. Sintra is famous for its pastries. The pastries of Piriquita, travesseiros , are famous all over Portugal, and people cue up to buy them to take home by boxes. These long, sugar coded
Read more