My partner and I visited Portugal in December, and one of our goals was to find a waterfall outside of Lisbon. There are a few, and one of the larger ones is the Cascata De Fervença. It’s about a 30 minute drive outside of central Lisbon, but we didn’t drive.

To make it more interesting, and because there were other items of interest nearby, we took the train to Sintra, which is a touristy town. In Sintra, there is a national park with a number of fascinating stops, including the Castleo dos Mouros. When we got off the train in Sintra, we wandered around for a bit, but I knew that Cascata De Fervença almost a 4 mile hike one-way from the train station in Sintra. So we opened up Uber, and obtained a ride to the waterfall.

Our first driver didn’t speak much English, and when he arrived at the location we had indicated, he was a bit confused. There was no waterfall in sight, so he wondered why we wanted to go to this random spot. My partner got out of the car and looked around for a bit, and then I noticed a paved road heading downhill from the main road. From Google Maps, I sensed that we needed to head that direction to find the waterfall. And lo and behold, there was definitely a waterfall down at the end of the paved road.

At 30′ (10 meters) high, the waterfall was impressive. There was something very beautiful about finding this waterfall when you didn’t expect it from the main road. The photos came out beautiful, but it does seem to be a dumping ground for marble and rocks, oddly enough. After hanging out there for about 30 minutes, we headed back up the paved road and obtained an Uber back to Sintra.

Directions:

1. As I mentioned, we started out in Lisbon. Lisbon has what is called the Lisboa Card, which allows for unlimited travel on the subway/metro, bus, tram, and trains. We purchased the 72 hour option, and then use the metro to get to the train, and the train to get to Sintra.
2. From Sintra, we set our Uber location (which you could use as the location if you decided to walk or drive as the Restaurant Retiro do Baião (which didn’t seem open in December). I don’t remember if the Uber app had a location for the actual waterfall.
3. When you get to Retiro do Baião, you want to turn around, head southwest, pass a residence, and then head downhill. The road is paved and it will veer left. You will pass what looks like a marble/mining operation.
4. The paved road will end and there is a short foot path to the falls.

Accessibility: 8/10 (easy/moderate)
Height: 30′
Length of Hike: 0.5 miles round-trip

Where in the World is Cascata De Fervença?