Sintra

Historical Sintra’s irresistible allure is well-documented by many illustrious scribes

Writers have sung Sintra's praises ever since Portugal's national poet, Luís Vaz de Camões, proclaimed its glory in Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads). Lord Byron called it "glorious Eden" when he and John Cam Hobhouse included Sintra in their grand travels of 1809. English romantics thrilled to its description in Byron's autobiographical Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Picture a town on a hillside with decaying birthday-cake villas covered with tiles coming loose in the damp mist. Luxuriant vegetation covers the town: camellias for melancholic romantics, ferns behind which lizards dart, pink and purple bougainvillea over garden trelliswork, red geraniums on wrought-iron balconies, eucalyptus branches fluttering in the wind, lemon groves, and honey-sweet mimosa scenting the air. But take heed -- some who visit Sintra fall under its spell and stay forever.

Sintra, just 18 miles northwest of Lisbon, is one of the oldest towns in the country. When the crusaders captured it in 1147, they fought bitterly against the Moors firmly entrenched in their hilltop castle, the ruins of which remain today.

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