We had the best time staying in Rodrigo's villa; we were so sad to leave at the end of our two weeks, it really had become like a second home. The pool and garden are fantastic and a feel like a hidden oasis but with all the amenities of the small town conveniently close by. Travel using the trains (and local taxis when there was a train strike on one of the days) was easy and efficient; 10 minutes to Cascais and 20-35 minutes to Lisbon (depending on whether the train stops at every station). Cascais is beautiful and well worth the short train journey for a wander around the shops, the marina or to have a special dinner close to the villa. Lisbon is possibly the prettiest capital city we've ever been to, it's a challenge with a pushchair (lots of steep hills and cobbled streets) but the metro is really easy to use and cheap. The trams are also great but do get very busy. Everyone we met whether in bakeries or restaurants or the train station ticket office was really hospitable and friendly. The villa itself has everything you could need for a holiday (including inflatables for the pool!) - we ate out most days but the kitchen is really well equipped. There is a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms plus some drawers in the hallway which should be enough for a small family but we realised quite quickly that we had all brought too much luggage (🫣) so we struggled for storage space but this was our fault, not the villa's.
Rodrigo, Patricia and their children are perfect hosts and were always quickly accessible via email if we had any questions during our stay. And despite sharing their home with them, we felt we had lots of privacy and thoroughly enjoyed our time at Villa Zambujeiro. We would recommend this place to couples and small families. There's also a really lovely park with a duck pond, climbing frame and swings and a very nice snack and drinks bar which Rodrigo recommended to us, it was a hit with all of us from age 2 to 59! :-)