AD, this is not a paid partnership but we were hosted with Visit Cascais for our trip and activities provided, we paid for our flights and everything else. All opinions are 100% my own // You can find Part One all about Cascais itself here.

The real magic of Cascais lies with its proximity to Sintra, a historical town up in the hills that’s often shrouded with mist and a real must visit. Lonely Planet describe it as 'a page from a fairytale' and it really does feel like you've stepped into some other worldly scene. Over the past few centuries, it became a draw to royalty because of the fertility and microclimate making it an ideal escape from the extreme summer heat for lots of Europe's rulers and wealthy artisans to set up their summer homes or palaces. They built elaborate mansions following the Romanticism movement. It’s now UNESCO protected and a world heritage site with five palaces to choose between.

AD, this is not a paid partnership but we were hosted with Visit Cascais for our trip and activities provided in exchange for this feature, we paid for our flights and everything else. All opinions are 100% my own // Ah, Cascais. That gorgeous little fishing town around the coast from Lisbon that we’ve basically referenced all of our other European trips against since our first visit. Two years ago we booked a trip to Lisbon {remember these posts?} and it was in the mid 30s temperature wise for our stay so our Airbnb host suggested we take the train to Cascais for the day to escape the city heat and hit the beach. We took her advice and it turned out to truly make the trip, we loved it so much that we hauled our suitcases there with us just to spend a few more hours there on our last day!

Ever since then, we’ve vowed to return and actually stay in Cascais this time, it’s so well located that you get that beach holiday feel as well as being able to visit Lisbon easily for the day if you wish and there’s Sintra just above in the mountains. So when the Visit Cascais tourist board asked if we’d be interested in a press trip to revisit the area, we of course jumped at the chance and booked flights for last weekend.

Last week we had a few days in Cascais as part of a feature I'm writing for the tourist board, we booked our flights in an out of Lisbon so couldn't resist adding on a couple of nights here to end the trip. A quick post with a little update to our second stay in Lisbon before I write up the first couple of days. {you can see the full guide from our first trip here}. Lisbon is known as Europe’s sunniest capital so it was unfortunate for us that our visit had grey skies and so much rain! Luckily we’d seen just how amazing it was during that first trip where we battled a heatwave. And of course, whilst not as pleasant for walking around dodging umbrellas and puddles and slippy pavements, it didn’t take away from the beauty of the city or that unique vibe it has. We still had such an enjoyable couple of days. Plus, it kind of took the pressure off slightly, especially as we’d been before, to ‘do this, must go here’ and instead we just wandered around to a few areas we’d enjoyed last time, focused on eating really great food {hello pastel de natas} and soaked up some of this precious last time where it will just be us two.