CASA DO VALLE

Sintra has many beaches, some of which are famous for surfing and bodyboarding.  The good thing about them is that surfing is always good at one of the beaches! That is why we recommend a surf school that has a license to operate in more than one of the beaches.  I have asked Vilma Nummila to write this post about surfing - she was here this summer and took a one-week surfing course, so she has first-hand experience and knows what it is like to start surfing here in Sintra.  My experience is that the surf school she chose, Surf At, is a school with certified instructors and equipment - as well as insurance and very pleasant staff! So here is Vilma's account on her surfing: Are you looking for a fun but challenging activity that provides you unforgettable experiences? Then surfing might be the thing for you. Surf At –surf school provides you surf lessons around the year. Affordable prices include the teaching and the rent of equipment. All you need with you...

This spring we had two sisters staying with us, and both tried climbing for the first time with Sintra Climbing Tours.  Martta had done indoor climbing for a year, Siiri however had never climbed at all.  They both loved it! I asked them to write an account on their experiences, and here it is, with a few pictures as well!  For more on bouldering and other outdoor activities here, check out these videos: ACTIVITIES:  https://vimeo.com/user22193830/review/78085802/10f94ba34b   BOULDERING: https://vimeo.com/92493001 Martta above, Siiri below  going up the 'Penedo da Amizade' near the Moorish Castle and a view of the zipline on the right Martta: I started climbing 1 year and a half ago in an indoor climbing gym in Paris and fell in love with it after the first session. I take to the bouldering blocks once a month, and have always been curious about climbing in the nature. Bouldering is low to the ground climbing without a harn...

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...

Traditionally, Tasca is a Portuguese word for a place to have good, tasty food: fast and with a reasonable price.  If you travel through Portugal, in the small villages, as well as in the bigger cities, you can usually find a tasca . They are characterized by lack of modern decor, they have large, shared tables or lots of small ones close together. The menu is normally reduced to two or three daily options, and is served as a complete menu: soup, main plate, dessert, coffee - and of course the bread and the olives. Tascas usually have a cheap house wine served in a jug.  The best part of the tascas is that normally the food is delicious, honestly Portuguese and cheap.  Service is fast and without frills. Without the drinks, you will find the menu to be between 7 and 10 euros per person. In Sintra we still have a few tascas: Tasca do Manel is the traditional kind, where you can sit together with the mayor and the carriage drivers: anyone wanting to eat well q...

Continuing on the theme of bike rentals in Sintra, here is another entry written by Fred who is somewhat used to biking and her girlfriend Jess, who is not used to biking: they rented the 'normal' bikes (as in non-electric) for three days to ride around this mountainous terrain.  The bold in the text has been added by me.  Here is what they said: Fred and Jess in front of Quinta da Regaleira  Inside Cycling Rentals My girlfriend and I are students in London. Over our Easter break, we decided to get out of the city and spend part of our holiday in Sintra. Before leaving, we read that to really enjoy Sintra, it's a good idea to explore the area with bicycles. On our second day in Sintra, we found out about Cycling-Rentals (URL: http://www.cycling-rentals.com/ ), a place where we could rent bicycles for a couple days. To preface this, neither my girlfriend nor I have ever done any serious cycling before. However, despite that, Cycling-Rentals was per...

This blog entry has been written by Pambo Palas , who used to live around here and now is a frequent visitor to Portugal.  Pambo is a skilled mountain bike rider, so taking out the electric bikes for a day was definitely a different experience for him! The bikes were rented from Cycling Rentals in Sintra, a new company here for this business.  Here is what Pambo wrote: Having spent another wonderful week in Sintra, I thought I would write a post about one of the nicest days I spent there and describe the experience I had of cycling in the mountain. This blog entry was written by Pambo Palas I have always been quite passionate about biking; when I used to live in Portugal for the last few years of my high school life I was obsessed with downhill riding – an adrenaline filled sport whereby we would sprint down the mountain (much to our parents’ disapproval) through intricate trails sprinkled with dirt jumps, sharp drops, and other man-made or natural obsta...

This entry has been written by Charles Lund, an American traveller who stayed with us in October.  An avid golfer, Charles wrote about his experiences in some of the golfcourses near by and within a daytrip from Sintra.  If you understand anything about golf, his writing will be a great help in choosing the courses and planning your days around golfing activities.   Penha Longa Atlantico I was able to get an email reply and my name on the tee sheet to play this Robert Trent Jones, Jr. course without having to pay in advance or provide a credit card number to hold the time.  I arrived at the course about an hour early and it was part of a large hotel complex.  The area for the course and the hotel was in some undulating terrain which was well forested, with lots of pine and oak trees.  I’ve played a lot of Robert Trent Jones, Jr. courses and his courses often have a large number of spectacular holes, with a couple of quirky holes that don’t seem to f...

I have asked Diego Scarabelli to write this blog entry. He knows his planes and is enthusiastic about them. I could really not distinguish them myself, except for by color and maybe types of wings (without knowing their names...) But the museum is actually very good and not so well known, so therefore I thought it would be worth the blog entry! So - here is the entry of Diego, thank you very much! (The plane in the first picture is a Saber) Military planes have always been my passion. I like to watch documentaries about them and, of course like to see them in the museums. You do not really understand their beauty and their abilities until you see them in person. From the ground we see them as little objects, but some of them are very big and yet agile. It is fascinating to imagine that these machines are the masters of the skies, or at least, they used to be before they were replaced by new and more advanced technology. Nevertheless, to fully comprehend the new jets it is...

This summer has been ever so busy! We have had works in the property and I have had nearly no time to write the blog! Therefor I have asked some special people and guests to write about their Sintra experiences and share some interesting hints of what to do - that is not the most obvious to all the visitors. The first people are Siiri and Elena - two students on a budget visiting Sintra. Here is their experience up in the mountain, more specifically, visiting the Park of Pena Palace. My friend Elena and I had the most magical time in the Sintra mountain. One beautiful day, we went to the town center and bought freshly made bread from a pastry shop and decided to have a picnic in the Pena Palace gardens, which apparently most people tend to ignore, only visiting the palace itself. We found a deal in the local shop for the entry tickets to palaces and gardens in Sintra which was 20 euros for each of us to get into practically...