Sintra

Michael Portillo's search for the real Portugal brings him to Sintra, once the playground of Portuguese royalty, until the end of the monarchy in 1910. Still a popular destination among tourists, its highlights include the 19th-century Pena Palace, the country's icon of Romanticism, which borrows from medieval and Islamic architecture. Michael also explores the cobbled backstreets, finding a historic bakery and the two cakes for the which the town is renowned - a small cheesecake called a queijada and an almond-cream-filled puff-pastry known as a travesseiro.