Visiting Leiria, Óbidos and Sintra, Portugal

This is a continuation of my Portugal trip report. See Back from Portugal! Some Thoughts, Review: TAP Air Portugal Business Class ORD to LIS, Review: Iberia Premium Economy MAD to DFW, 48 hours in Lisbon, Review: My Story Hotel Augusta, 4 nights in Nazaré 

During out week in Portugal, we took some day trips to smaller cities. Here are the highlights:

Leiria

Leiria is not an international tourist destination. But, our friends who moved to Portugal live in Leiria, so we wanted to see what their new life was like. The drive to Leiria from Nazaré was about 35 minutes.

Leiria has a population of ~130,000 people and a community of expats and immigrants. After we saw our friends’ new home, we walked to the town square for a leisurely lunch.

Leiria was advertising its festivals and celebrations it has throughout the year:

The town has a historic castle that sits on the highest hill:

We explored the inside of the castle and had it practically to ourselves. This was my favorite area:

There is a funicular that runs from the futbol stadium to the castle:

The city has a river that runs through it with walking and biking paths alongside it. Overall, Leiria seems like a cute, livable city.

Óbidos

We took a day to explore the medieval walled city of Óbidos one day, which is 35 minutes from Nazaré.

Its narrow streets and white-washed houses reminded me of Greece:

Óbidos has just 3100 residents but over half a million books! It has cute shops and restaurants:

We were hoping to check out the International Chocolate Festival that was happening during March. But unfortunately, we were there on a Thursday and it was only happening on weekends. The town did have other chocolate shops which of course I had to visit. My daughter and I loved these chocolate covered mousse balls that were sold at the shops:

Overall, we loved our day in Óbidos!

Sintra

On our last full day in Portugal, we made it to Sintra. This city is known for its multiple stunning castles and estates. We drove about 90 minutes from Nazare to Sintra on our way back to Lisbon at the end of our trip.

If you’re going to visit Sintra, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the different sites. There are a lot of good resources out there, here is one. Sintra is most famous for Pena Palace:

But, there are other things to see in town that are equally impressive.

On the day we visited Sintra, there was heavy fog and some rain.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any of the castles on the hills due to the thick fog. So, we started with lunch at a cafe in hopes that the fog would disappear in the afternoon.

By the way, parking in Sintra is very limited. We ended up parking near the train station and walking/Ubering around town.

After a lovely lunch, we decided to focus our time at Quinta de la Regaleira. It was fun to explore the gardens and all the nooks and crannies at this historic UNESCO site.

The main reason we decided to go here was to experience the Initiation Well. The entrance at the top:

We gradually went down the stairs to the bottom of the well:

Then we explored the tunnels and grotto at the bottom of the well:

The gardens of the estate had so many cool things to climb and explore:

Unfortunately, we ran out of time and we didn’t get to see everything at Quinta de la Regaleira. I don’t see how anyone could possibly see all of Sintra in one day. We all agreed that we would love to come back and explore more of Sintra on a future trip.

Overall Thoughts

I actually enjoyed visiting these smaller towns more than Lisbon. If you’re planning a trip to Portugal, I recommend checking out Óbidos and Sintra.