anyone holidayed in Sintra, Portugal?

[iwantavuvezela]

Looking at doing a two family holiday in Sintra - with a villa. My family has a teen, and other family has two children under 6.

If anyone has any recommendations in terms of where they stayed, good beaches etc, would love to hear.

I've been to sintra and stayed 2 nights, spent 2.5 days there. We stayed in a guesthouse, so can't help with villas. We used it as a base for visiting the various palaces and moorish castle. We then spent 2 nights in Cascais and 3 nights in Lisbon itself. It's about 20 mins by car from the beach at Cascais, longer by public transport. I think it's fine as a base for a full week, but if you are more interested in beach time then I would stay in Cascais and travel up to Sintra for a day trip or two. Sintra has a funny one way system, not sure how easy it is to navigate if driving yourself around. It was warm for sightseeing but too cold to use the pool in Sintra (and almost as chilly in the Lisbon pool) at the end of May.

I can't imagine actually staying in Sintra because of the traffic. We stayed in Lisbon last August and went on a day trip to Sintra by train. But when we got there you had to get a bus around Sintra (it goes in a circuit) and it felt like we were stuck in traffic for most of the day!
We also stayed a few nights in Cascais which we loved!

We stayed in an air BnB about 30 mins north of Lisbon this summer and it was wonderful. We went to sintra for the day & this was enough, it was SO busy compared to everywhere else we visited, which by comparison was very relaxed. I wouldn't therefore stay in sintra but find somewhere nearby & do a day visit-despite being busy it was worth it.

We had a day trip to Sintra from Lisbon - got the bus to the Pena palace, then walked down to the moorish castle to visit that and walked back down from there to visit other sites. It was an easy enough walk, and we didn't spend the day in traffic. Also, it meant we got to Pena Palace before it was too busy. We didn't visit everywhere we wanted to, so maybe staying one more night, and seeing some other places would have been enough for us. I'd stay in Cascais and do trips into Sintra and Lisbon.