Praia das Maçãs (Apple Beach)

This is a golden sandy beach at the mouth of the river which gives it its name: as the story goes, during the autumn, the river would carry with it apples from the farms it ran through, thus giving the beach its name. The village began to spring up at the end of the 19^th century when Father Matias del Campo, the Colares parish priest, Manuel Prego, a local from Azenhas do Mar, and the composer and painter, Alfredo Keil, who wrote the Portuguese national anthem ("A Portuguesa"), built the first three houses.

However, man has roamed these parts since pre-historic times and left behind various traces and materials from the Chalcolithic Age (idols-metal, ceramic, silex, etc).

On the left bank of the mouth of the River Maçãs, on a mound known as Alto da Vigia, there used to be a temple dedicated to the sun and the moon. In the 16^th century, André de Resende and Francisco de Holanda, amongst others, visited the ruins of this sanctuary and while the former collected some epigraphic inscriptions, the latter idealised it in a reconstruction of the ancient Temple of the Sun and Moon in his book, "Da Fábrica que Falece à Cidade de Lisboa" (From the Defunct Factory to the City of Lisbon). 

It is a large sandy beach which provides plenty of beach sports and is highly popular with lovers of water sports such as surfing and bodyboarding.

Around the 250 metres of sandy beach area, a number of commercial venues have been established, from restaurants, cafés and bars to local crafts shops which have all helped to turn the area into a meeting point for Sintra residents who frequent the alfresco restaurants for their excellent food in the winter as well as in the summer. On the beach there is a saltwater pool, a playground and a picnic area. At either end of the beach there are rock platforms from which you can safely fish. In addition to the beach, one of the area’s attractions is the famous tram ride which is now operational again. The route begins at Estefânia, next to Sintra's Museum of Modern Art, goes via Colares where it stops briefly and ends at the sea-front on Praia das Maçãs.

GPS - N38º49'32.03'' , W9º28'09.64''

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