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Sintra current conditions

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Went to Sintra last Saturday, staying overnight to visit Peña Palace Sunday morning. A few tips:
We purchased our tickets online before our trip and printed them out. This avoided issues with our crippled phones, broken ticket machines. There were many unhappy people turned away due to hours long waits at the one functioning machine at the site.
We also purchased the Rossio station to Sintra station a day in advance because some of those machines were also broken. The trains were running both ways, but it is a good idea to know the bus schedule just in case.
Once in Sintra, take a taxi or putt-putt up to the site. We heard the local bus was over-crowded and often late, so sometimes didn’t even stop to pick people up. Besides, you want to save your time and energy for the site itself. Afterwards we hiked down to town on the Via Sesetti. Beautiful, but with lots of very steep stone steps near the top. Don’t even think about hiking up to the site this way unless you are very fit.

The palace and park are amazing. We could have spent another day just walking more of the gardens and seeing the other castles.

Posted by
350 posts

What a great report!

We’ll be visiting Sintra in October (first week). I wonder if crowding is a problem then. Do you know?

Also where do you print your tickets when you purchase ahead of time? I’d buy the ticket ahead of time but have no idea where to print them. Or is PDF copy on the phone screen sufficient?

Posted by
31 posts

With so many people traveling this year, even oct may be more than usu. Our morning visit to Peña was busy in the palace, but not at all on the grounds. We had some paths all to ourselves. The earlier you arrive, the better. Avoid the crowds and the heat (for July and august at least).

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31 posts

If your ticket has a bar code, they will usu scan it from either paper or phone image (any type). For one of the castles, they just looked for the date on our printed ticket since it had no bar code.

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4 posts

Went to Sintra a week ago. Bought the tickets on their site one day before. Used Viva Viagem card to go there and back. Took a taxi (Tesla 12euro) to Pena from the place in front of National Palace. We descended by foot via Vila Sasetti trail after visiting Moorish Castle and took a Uber to Monseratte (15euro went and back).

Never considered the bus since we were 4 persons.

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221 posts

Would it work to visit Sintra just as a day trip from Lisbon? We're planning to be there in October, there are 5 of us (in our 60s, various fitness levels, but none of us want to climb crazy hills) so we would be happy to hire a private guide and/or driver, either from Lisbon, or meet at the station in Sintra.

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31 posts

Yes you can, but you will be limited by time and energy. If you want to walk around and explore an area then identify the one you really must see or do a bus tour.

We got off the train ~10am and did the 20min mostly level walk to the Regaleria and spent hours walking the shady lush garden paths and manor/castle, dining at the affordable onsite cafeteria. We are the type to leave no garden unstrolled, no tower unclimbed, no grotto unexplored and this place has all of that and more. This used up day1.

Day2 was Taxi up to Pena Palace gate ~9am then take the green bus up to the palace itself which is a Fabergé egg of craftsmanship. You could spend a half hour in each room and still miss some artistic detail. Think Disney meets Gaudí. After the palace, we walked some of the extensive grounds (all downhill) passing thru The Valley of the lakes and then heading to morro castle which is lots of steep, rough steps without any big reward for our efforts.

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