Castles · Tour

Sintra and the Inverted Towers of Regaleira, on Foot in Under Four Hours

A walking tour that starts in the historic core of Sintra and covers the town before the estate, which is the right way round. The first half is Sintra itself, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the Palace of Sintra and the Castle of the Moors along the way and the history of why the Romantic architecture here looks the way it does. Then the Quinta da Regaleira. Augusto Carvalho Monteiro commissioned it in the 20th century, and the building puts neo-Manueline and Gothic together on the same walls. Inside the estate: the gardens, the lakes, the fountains and the tunnels that give the place its reputation. The palace is part of the visit, with the stories attached to its design. And the Initiation Wells, which the estate calls the Inverted Towers, built for Masonic and alchemical ritual rather than for water. The whole thing runs between two and a half and three and a half hours, and ends at Regaleira. The route can vary a little with the date and the time of the departure, and some versions take in extra stops along the way.