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Questions about Sintra attraction tickets

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We will be in Lisbon next week and are planning to go to Sintra twice in order to cover all the attractions. We want to see Pena Palace, Moorish Castle, Quinta da Regaleira, and Monserrate.

  1. We will probably take a free walking tour on the first day in order to get an overview of the place before hitting each individual attraction. If anybody has taken that tour and can provide a review, please let me know.

  2. We only plan to see the garden grounds of Pena Palace. On the Parques de Sintra website, is that "Park of Pena"? They don't provide descriptions on booking page, so I just want to make sure.

  3. Quinta da Regaleira is managed by a separate entity so we will have to buy tickets on a different website. I believe Parques de Sintra offer 15% discount if we buy tickets at least 3 days in advance, but I don't think Quinta da Regaleira offers any discount. Since there is no incentive to buy tickets for QR too early, I can literally just wait until the night before the trip (to ensure the weather will be good), right?

3.a. QR tickets are timed to a 30-minute window, which is annoying as it limits the flexibility. Does anyone know how strictly they enforce the time? Would they allow me to enter if I am late? I read on this forum that Pena Palace would allow you to enter later than the designated time, but not earlier. We don't plan to go to PP inside, so that piece of information doesn't matter to us, but I am just wondering if QR does the same thing.

3.b. If QR does enforce the time window strictly, would we be better off just buy the ticket at the gate? If we go in the afternoon, it seems there will be lots of tickets. (I just checked on their website. It's Friday noon US eastern right now as I am tying, so it's end of the Friday there, but for tomorrow Sat, from 11:30 AM onward, each time slot has at least 150 out of 300 tickets remaining.)

Appreciate your input in advance.

Posted by
160 posts

Few points about Sintra that may or may not be helpful to you:

  1. Check weather previous night - weather in Sintra can be different than Lisbon in spite of the proximity
  2. Use Bolt/Uber to save on time/energy to go directly to Penna place from your Lisbon hotel.
  3. Park ticket is sufficient to visit the colorful terraces (they dont sell out and can be bought online while in car on way to Sinra)
  4. Morish Castle short walk away and involves a hike.
  5. Again use Uber/Bolt to go to QR UPPER entrance (driver will like to drop you at bottom as his next ride pickup will be from there) You can buy your QR ticket while in the car on way there
  6. You have better chance of getting Uber/Bolt from Pena entrance rather than Moorish Castle entrance for obvious reasons - so walk back to Pena entrance from Moorish Caste exit (you can also hike down from castle into the town but trail markings can be confusing and it is time consuming)
  7. After QR, you may want to grab lunch in the town and then grab Uber/Bolt to Monserrate

Basically, if you want, you can do all 4 attractions in the same day.

That way you can use your other day for Cascais and Cabo Roca

If uber/bolt is too much for you then just hire a car/driver for the whole day .
We have used and recommended to others Fernando Batista of Portuguese Chauffeur, (has website and used to give discount to Risk Steve's Forum members)

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