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Vila Velha
This area features historic shops, small traditional businesses, and a strong tourist presence.
Estefânia
King D. Pedro V, a monarch with modern and progressive ideas, wished to keep pace with European development, particularly in railway construction. The king, therefore, wanted to connect Sintra to the capital. The construction of the railway led to the building of the first nine houses in Correnteza, to house the engineers and workers employed on the project. Thus began Vila Estefânia, a name honoring the unfortunate queen who died fourteen months after marrying D. Pedro V. Until the end of the 19th century, this "New Village," as it was called, grew little. It was only from the early 20th century that Estefânia truly began to develop demographically. With the construction of the new Town Hall, a project by Architect Adães Bermudes, and its inauguration in 1908, Vila Estefânia grew and established itself as the important neighborhood it is today in the Sintra landscape. This was followed, in 1911, by the construction of the District Prison, also a Bermudes project, which envisioned a castle-like building near the railway station. Another important figure in Estefânia’s development was Adriano Júlio Coelho, a wealthy businessman who commissioned the construction of the Bairro das Flores, a project by Norte Júnior, as well as the Sintra Casino (now MU.SA, Sintra Art Museum). In just over thirty years, Estefânia had already reached a very significant size and considerable importance, with commerce and services well established there. In fact, this new neighborhood of Sintra gave the town of Sintra another demographic dimension. And the demand was so great that, in a short space of time, another important neighborhood was to emerge.
Portela
Originally, Portela de Sintra was just a large farm called Casal da Portela. However, with this exponential growth and the need to meet the demand for housing, the first building complexes and structural improvements for the creation of this new neighborhood began to be planned right at the beginning of the republic. Crucial was the construction of the road connecting Sintra to Mem Martins, which would become the central axis of the Portela area. It was along this axis that the first apartment blocks were built, interspersed with single-family houses. This population increase in an area once practically deserted led to the creation of the Portela de Sintra railway halt, facilitating access to the train for residents of the new neighborhood. Today, Portela de Sintra hosts a vast and diverse range of commerce, services, and public facilities, notably the Santa Maria Secondary School, the Tax Office, SMAS (Municipal Water and Sanitation Services), the Post Office, banking institutions, etc.
