The location offers elevated sweeping views, from Cascais and the Sintra Mountains, and the Caparica coast to the north, and to the southeast the beaches south of Tróia and beyond to Sines.

Cape Espichel is located within the Lusitanian Basin, a regional geologic feature formed during the opening of the North Atlantic, a process which began in the Triassic and continues still today.

In excellent geologic succession, progressing upwards in time from the cape end northwards, the dipping strata are displayed along the western cliff faces as a natural cross-section, especially impressive when seen from the sea.

sylvestris and endemic Ulex densus dominates the landscape, but with a ground cover inferior to that found in the bush areas in the sheltered valleys described earlier.

[5] On the coastal cliffs or steep slopes, influenced by saltwater spray and wind, with soils impoverished by leaching, a low vegetation assemblage with weak ground cover dominates, consisting mainly of Limonium species and rock samphire, and occupying small depressions among and within fissures in the limestone outcrops.

The discovery of stone tools and other artifacts in various archaeological sites in the area provides evidence of human occupation dating back further than ten thousand years.

The local toponymy, however, includes a few names with Arabic roots, such as Azóia, the nearest village to the cape, which derived from Al Zawiya (meaning hermitage).

[10] Atop the Pedra da Mua Natural Monument, the modest Shrine of Memory sits alone on the cliff edge, marking a mythical location: superstition linked the dinosaur trackways below to an appearance of the Holy Virgin (Our Lady), who, according to legend, ascended from the sea up the cliff walls on a mule, leaving a trackway in the solid rock below, and appeared before two pilgrims who had traveled from afar after dreaming of her.