We will be visiting Sintra as a day trip from Lisbon in June. Everything that I read has commented on the number of visitors so I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to hire a guide or be part of a tour or would we be ok with just bus 434 and 435?. Also, I'd like to see Monserrate on the same day. Is this possible or is that just crazy?
As always, thank you for your insights.
The best was to do Sintra is a private guide, if your budget allows. The next best is a small group tour. I would never rely on the buses due to crowds. You can really do only a couple of sites in a day, unless you really rush through them.
My sister recently used a private guide who is considered one of the best in the Lisbon area. This guide didn’t even recommend Pena Palace, as it’s not really historic, plus the awful crowds. She did include Monserrat on their tour.
I'm trying to do Pena, Montserrate, and Regaleira in one go and in a long day. Someone here did it and posted it about it, though I don't have the link to her post at the moment. But a key seems to be to elect to do more exterior/garden tours than the interiors. I've been to Pena (in the 90s so not the craziness of today) and what was most memorable were the views and walking up those foggy paths with trees framing ruins, some sitting in the middle of ponds.
We did it on our own in September 2024. Once we got to Sintra we took an Uber to the Moorish Castle. We tried the bus first but there were such long lines we around have been waiting for an hour or more. To save time, I've cut and pasted that day from my Trip Report:
We had some momentary confusion when we went to catch the train. There are two Rossio stations, the Metro do Rossio which is the subway, and Lisboa Rossio which is the actual train. They’re close to each other but different. We couldn’t find an employee to ask and stumbled and fumbled for 5-10 minutes before we figured out that we were in the wrong station.
After a 40-minute ride, you’re in tourism central. TukTuks, cabs, guides all converging to offer you the ‘best price’ to get you wherever you want to go. The TukTuk guy said it was €15pp to Pena Palace which either means he took us for idiot tourists, or the RS guidebook is wrong. I believe it says €5. We decided on the National Palace in Sintra first. It was surprisingly interesting and worth the €13 ticket for the 1.5 hours we spent there. We bought our tickets at the Tourist Info office across the street thinking we’d save ourselves a slow line at the Palace. As it turns out there was no line and hardly anybody in the palace. I’d started to appreciate the tiled buildings in Lisbon but it’s the blue and white tiles depicting scenery that I first encountered in the Palace that would become my favourite use of the tiles throughout the trip.
We then headed for the bus stop which gets you to the top for about €5, but busses were only every 30 minutes and the lines so long that we would have waited 2-3 buses. We negotiated with a TukTuk driver but he was firm at €15pp. We decided on Uber for a total price of €14 up and then caught another for €9 for the ride down. I’m shocked that more people didn’t consider this because the wait for the bus down was as long as it was for the up portion. To be honest we threw around the idea of Uber from Lisbon, but for some reason we chose the train.
The Moorish Castle https://www.parquesdesintra.pt/en/parks-monuments/the-moorish-castle/ seems to get lukewarm reviews on this Forum and in the guidebook, but it was the highlight. It’s about a 10-minute fairy tale walk from the ticket kiosk through a lushly green forest to the castle and walls that you need to see to appreciate. I would advise a good treaded hiker, a reasonable amount of fitness, and to be aware that the trails and walls could be a challenge for the mobility challenged with a total of 500 steps to get to the top lookout point. There are also no railings on the ramparts, and they are narrow and uneven in spots and Carla chose not to try.
From there we walked uphill for 10 minutes along an uneven dirt trail through the forest to get to the ticket kiosk for Pena Palace. We weren’t interested in the insides of the Palace and just wanted to visit the free terraces outside. Every book warns about the steep climb from the ticket booth to the palace, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It was uphill and took about 7-8 minutes. There is a shuttle bus for €2.85 that you can take up as well. Liked, but didn’t love the palace, and we weren’t impressed with the signage. We saw no signage on how to visit the terraces, but I recalled reading that you entered through the gift shop and went up some stairs and through a cafeteria, which is correct. Even the entry for the interior wasn’t clear, we watched people confused of where to go. Mobility alert. It had started to rain while we were there and the walk down on wet cobblestones was very slippery in spots. Probably a good reason to take the shuttle down.*
We were there in Oct. See my post on this forum about the practical tips I learned from the trip.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/portugal/practical-tips-learned-from-our-5-day-stay-in-lisbon-part-1
To answer your specific questions: if you hire a guide, of course they will take care of all the transportation. But if you want to save some money to DIY, the best method of transportation is to take a Bolt from your hotel/Airbnb in Lisbon directly to Pena Palace. It will cost between 25~30 Euros, but if you get a coupon code for Bolt, it will be less than 20 Euros, which is less than 2 persons' fares if you have to pay for Metro to Rossio Station, then train to Sintra, then 434/435 bus. It will also save you 1~2 hours. After Pena, you can take Bolt or Uber to Monserrate. (434/435 bus will not work if you want to visit Pena then Monserrate because the 2 places are on 2 different bus routes, so you will have to go from Sintra back to downtown and switch to a different bus and pay again -- wasting a lot of time and the 2 bus fares will be more than the Bolt or Uber.)
We went to SIntra twice. First day, we took the train ourselves, then took a Free Walking Tour of Sintra, then walked to Monserrate. Second day, we took the Bolt to Pena Palace, did the park only, then Moorish Castle, then Quinta da Regaleira. Because we saved some time by taking the Bolt, we were at Pena Palace at 9:30 AM, so we were able to do 3 places without feeling any kind of rush. At the end of the day, we took the train back to Lisbon since we are not in any hurry, so decided to save some money.
Thank you so much! This was incredibly helpful.
