Sintra Ericeira: Gran Lisboa a full!

I love this tour. It combines the amazing coastline with steep cliffs and lonesome beaches with the forrests, rivers and untouched nature of the interior.


Distance: 65 km
Fall: 1.300 m
Downhill: 1.300 m
Duration: 8 - 12 h
Caracter: difficult & entiring 

Sintra - Lizandro da Foz
We start on Sintras trainstation. This time we hidding of to the citycenter and follow the direction to Quinta da Regaleira. We could already leave the paved road after a few kilometer by turning left where we find a little lake on our right and a mansion on our left. But we start it easy and follow the street down to Colares. where the street divides indicated to Praha das Macas and Cascais, we go in direction Cascais but leave the mainroad ater a hundred meters to the right. We follow that way aproximatly for a kilometer, before we turn left, otherwise we find ourselfs on the end o the track. We turn left twice and we are on the way down to Praha Grande. We follow the beach to the right and jump over to the next beach. After a few meters on the mainroad we find a parking place where we continuer on small singletrails very close to the coast. 2 km later we return to that street and cross the next village. On the end of this village we find "Caminho da Aquda", a way that beginns as a unpaved road in good conditions, but later turns into a mix out of road and trail. Five kilometer later we reach it´s end on another beach with a bar open the whole year. We have to climb a few meters on a wooden way and reach a major street. As always we turn left in direction to the sea. The road ends on a parking space after 500 m. Here we have to turn landwards for a bit and return to the cliffs afterwards, otherwise we get lost in the cliffs. We select one of the trails in this great natural bikepark and reach Praha do Lisandro after a while. We can go down by the cliffs or turn a long circle on the trail to the interior. An attractive singletrail in the green northside of the cliffs offers views to the beach and brings us back to civilization and to the brigde discribed below.

Lizandor da Foz- Sintra

Probably after a stop on the beach we have to climb up the same street as the cars and roll down to the valley as soon we reach the main road. A few meters before the brigde we turn into a dirtroad on our right. We follow this road for a few kilometers, passing a little power plant until a cementary. Here we cross the little river and follow it on a singletrail on the other side. Beginning here we find ourself in a uncountable net out o singletrails through the forrest. Mainly we follow the river, crossing it twice. On it´s end we arrive in Carvalhal. On the gps-trail we still follow the river in this village and reach a steep uphill to the windmills on top. On that uphill probable bikes have to be pushed mainly. Alternativly we can follow the road and turn right after the village and follow right again after a kilometer.
On top of the mountain we pass by a village called Cabrela where we go down to the river again. We cross the bridge and turn right again. After one or two kilometers we find a gravel pit. We climb up until we reach the entrance.
Here, on km 55 we find the main road. Unfortunatly beginning here the track is quite borring. For the last 10 km we mainly follow the mainroad allways in direction to Sintra. Maybe somebody got a better idea to go back to Sintra? I would be thankfull for!