Sintra

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Sintra, Without the Coach-Crowd Crush We rolled into Sintra at noon on a July Saturday and made every mistake in the book. The Pena Palace queue snaked back through the gardens, the hill bus was packed solid, and by the time we reached the terraces the famous colours were swimming in heat haze and hundreds of selfie sticks. A guesthouse owner later put it plainly: “You came at the worst hour of the worst month. Come back in May and arrive at nine — it’s a different mountain.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Car Rental in Lisbon: When It Saves You and When It Stings We spent our first afternoon in Lisbon doing exactly what I’m about to tell you not to do: circling Bairro Alto in a rented VW Polo, my wife reading out parking-app prices while I rode the clutch up another cobbled hill. We paid almost 20 euros to leave that car in a garage overnight and never touched it the next day. The car wasn’t the mistake. The timing was, and it’s the one almost everyone makes. ...