Lord Byron called Sintra a glorious Eden, and for once the poet was not exaggerating. The Serra de Sintra is a granite ridge that catches Atlantic cloud and holds it, so while Lisbon bakes the hills above Sintra are green, cool and often wrapped in mist. Up in the trees stand fantasies built by Portuguese royals and rich romantics: the Pena Palace in yellow, red and blue, built in the nineteenth century for Ferdinand II, a German-born prince consort with a taste for the theatrical, and the Moorish Castle, whose walls snake along the ridge above.
Further down are Quinta da Regaleira, with its spiral initiation well, and the Monserrate gardens, with plants from every continent. All of this explains why the town is on the world heritage list, and why the visitor numbers are enormous. In the old centre the pastries are the local religion: travesseiros, flaky pillows filled with almond and egg cream, and queijadas, small sweet cheese tarts.
For a rider, Sintra is two things at once. The roads climbing through the serra are delightful: narrow, wooded, twisting between moss-covered walls and huge boulders, with the odd view of the sea far below. But they are also shared with tour buses, tuk-tuks, hire cars and queues. Early weekday mornings or the off season are the only sensible times, and even then expect cobbles in the village and wet leaves on shaded bends. West of town the road runs out to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of mainland Europe, where a lighthouse stands above cliffs that fall straight to the surf. Wind there is fierce, so tuck in and keep your visor down.
The municipality has hundreds of thousands of people, with big suburbs like Algueirão and Mem Martins running into town, so fuel, supermarkets and repair shops are easy to find on the lower side, away from the hills. Parking a motorbike near the historic centre is usually easier than for a car, though there is no guarantee in high season. Pack a layer, since the serra is often ten degrees cooler and damper than the coast, and leave time for a pastry.