São Miguel de Odrinhas Archaeological Museum

When you visit Sintra, you’ll see clear signs of the Moorish occupation and the Christian reconquest, but seldom indications of the other civilisations that also settled there. In Odrinhas, you can travel back to the 1st century BC and visit the visible walls and compartments of the Roman ruins, as well as the later structure (3rd and 4th century AD) of what could have been a temple or mausoleum. You’ll also find the church of São Miguel here and a medieval necropolis used from the 12th to 16th century with its graves intact. Beside the ruins, to show all the remains collected in the area, is the museum, which besides having a specialised library, auditorium and study and restoration rooms, also shows all the artefacts found at the ruins. The highlight of these is one of the largest known collections of epigraphs and their exhibition is organised around the “Book of Stone”, which covers 2, 000 years of history.