Casa da PadernaSintra · Portugal
Getting here, and what is on the doorstep
The house sits below Sintra Old Town, ten minutes up the hill from Palace Square. Here is how you reach it and what you can walk to once you have.
Where the house is
Rua da Paderna 4, 2710-604 Sintra. It stands below the historic centre on the slope down into the Arraçário Valley, which is why the walk into town is uphill going out and downhill coming home.
From Lisbon by train
Trains run to Sintra from Rossio station in the middle of Lisbon and take roughly forty minutes. Sintra is the end of the line, so there is no stop to watch for. From the station it is a walk through the town and down towards us.
By car
Lisbon and its airport are about forty minutes away when the road is kind. Be warned that the streets of the historic centre are narrow, steep and old, and were laid out long before anybody had a car to put on them.
Parking
On the street, free, and there is genuinely room. The property runs along half the lane, which is not something many houses in Sintra can say, and none of the parking out there is metered.
Arriving
We meet every guest ourselves and let you in. On weekday mornings our housekeeper is on the property too, keeping out of your way in her own part of it, and she will take care of laundry or anything else that comes up.
Palace Square, ten minutes up
The heart of the Old Town, with the National Palace and its two great chimneys standing over it, and the restaurants, cafes and shops around it. Ten minutes on foot from the door.
The palaces on the ridge
Pena and the Moorish Castle sit along the top of the hill above the town, in the wooded landscape that made Sintra a World Heritage site. You can climb to them on foot if your legs are willing, or take one of the buses or taxis that go up from the centre.
Quinta da Regaleira
The gardens with the initiation well, a short walk out of the centre and the one our guest books mention by name more than any other.
The coast
Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of mainland Europe, and the beaches below it are a short drive west. Sintra sits close enough that a morning in the gardens and an afternoon in the Atlantic is an ordinary sort of day here.
Once you are in
The house is yours, all three floors of it, with the studio standing on its own in the garden. It is self-catering, with a kitchen on every floor, and the dog is welcome. There is a gigabit of wifi for whoever has brought work with them. Fourteen of you can sleep here.