Walking in Sintra: Another Perspective

Personally, I think going uphill is easier for the most part than
going downhill.

I'm of the same opinion as you on the downhill, I also find it tougher, especially on my knees.

Like most opinions on this Forum, it's important to know yourself and interpret other people's opinions to your own capabilities. I've learned to be careful about saying a walk is easy, because it may not be for all. I try to say something like we walked everywhere despite the hills and stairs. We just got back from Washington DC and I stated in my Trip Report that we walked 13 miles on Saturday and 9 on Sunday. I certainly don't want someone to interpret that as anyone can do it.

*We're throwing around the idea of going to Portugal next Fall. I hope you'll continue writing about your adventure.

Google maps says it's about a mile and three quarters from the train station to Pena Palace and takes 54 minutes. All together, you probably walked about 5 miles. I agree with you that walking is the way to go. I'm 78, also lightweight, and just returned from a European trip. On many days, I walked 8 miles while sightseeing, but always in spurts over the course of a day. I try to walk most days at home, but I'll do a couple of miles, usually no more.

Muriel, while there's no doubt the walk up and down the hill was quite doable, I think a better question might be, "Is it worth the time?" Because most people day tripping to Sintra seem to run out of time. Is an extra hour or two hiking up and down the hill really worth it?

E.g. did you get to see the Quinta da Regaleira? This was the last thing I saw on my day in Sintra, and personally, even though the Pena Palace was beautiful, the Quinta da Regaleira was my favorite. Had I hiked up and down all the way instead of taking the 434 bus up and down, I likely would have missed it. I am used to walking many miles on my trips to Europe anyway and usually wind up with sore feet, so anytime there's any easy bus option to save me a few miles of walking, I will usually do it!

Personally, I think going uphill is easier for the most part than
going downhill.

That's what my husband feels too. His knees are not at all happy going downhill but he's not so bad going uphill. I on the other hand go downhill quite happily.

I am old (74) but in pretty good shape. My daughter (50 and a runner) and I decided to walk down to Sinatra from Peña Palace (which was miserably overcrowded in mid September sadly…long, long lines). Walking through the park below the palace was quick and easy and scenic then we followed Rick’s advice about walking to Sintra from the lower palace entrance and following a slightly confusing path which was quite steep with huge stone blocks to navigate which I found daunting. I did manage it without falling (hiking poles would have been handy) thank goodness and then we were welcomed to the glorious path and gardens of Villa Sassetti which took us all the way down to the very crowded town of Sintra..Taking a taxi up to the palace that morning was a no brainer for us but others might enjoy walking the side path up and down…no need to walk on the busy road as some people were doing. So many visitors in Lisbon spoiled our three days there for me but it is a beautiful city. Our river cruise in the Douro valley was much more relaxing and absolutely gorgeous. Highly recommend that area and Porto was a nice sized city with lots to see.

We walked up to Pena on the footpath that goes thru Villa Sassetti. Entered at the lakes entrance but can take a branch in the trail to enter at the main entrance etc. I thought it was worth the time since it's beautiful and peaceful. Afterwards took a path to the Moorish Castle and walked down via the Santa Maria Trail. It was a very pleasant day. We took our time, since we didn't visit Sintra to see everything, but just enjoyed what we did get around to seeing and reducing the amount of time in crowds.

Couple of links for those who like to walk.

https://thehoppyhikers.com/sintra-palace-and-castle-loop/

https://www.parquesdesintra.pt/en/plan-your-visit/itineraries/sintra-by-foot/

All, what wonderful replies! I wish I could be more interactive earlier but it was tough even just trying to do a daily personal log of what I did. I am now back home and re-settling so let me try to provide some responses.

@Allan, I agree with you that it is important to know oneself and interpret other's people's opinion. What's hard is knowing the context that people are expressing their opinion, so meaning like how they see and feel their bodies. It may not be any easier, but it's partly why I provided some context about me being lightweight, how much I run (vs. how much my husband does/doesn't) and hopefully that provides some context for others to gauge their own experience. Truthfully, every guidebook I read about Sintra, Lisbon, and Porto made such strong opinions about the hills I was have serious doubt about whether it was going to be that doable for me, so I started worrying things like: I gotta make sure we arrive in Sintra on time, then get on the Scotturb 434 to get to Pena Palace and all checked in through the last barrier before 10:00am which is our timed entry! Panic! Panic! LOL.

Funnily enough, at one point during our walk up to Pena Palace, a sign said this way to the Palace and about 30 minutes walk. We looked at our watch and we're like, we only have 20 minutes until 10am! We're going to miss our timed entry! We panicked. My husband started running and I said to him, don't! You can't sustain it so let's just walk faster. Well, it only took us 12 minutes to get to the entry. Perhaps for a leisurely stroll or slow walkers it would have been 30 minutes? But it really would have just taken us probably around 15 minutes in normal walking to get there, so yeah --- context and it's hard to know. Understandably, tour books and signs do want to estimate on the conservative side.

@Janet, I don't recall all the logs of our walk (it's on my Watch) but I know we averaged about 20,000 steps a day and yes, several miles of movement.

@Andrew H., your question about "Is it worth the extra time" is a good point! This reminds me when I was planning for our Lisbon trip, a number of people I know said oh yeah you can do Lisbon in 3 days and that's more than enough time. Well, having come back from our trip now, I will say 3 days is NOT enough time for the way me and my husband like to travel. I don't feel like we are that atypical, but maybe we are (??) because we are really NOT interested in JUST hitting the major sites and then calling it "done". We are NOT that kind of tourist. We had about 5 days in Lisbon and we could have easily spent another 5 days exploring. For us (and again, I don't feel this is so atypical, but maybe it is generally??) the various destinations (sites such as Pena Palace, etc.) are not just the goal, but the path to those destinations is also part of the destination itself. So, for us, it was totally worth walking up and down and across all over Sintra because we get to feel the environment, we get to engage our bodies with the whole place. So I guess it depends on what one's goal is.

If the idea is to hit all four major points (Pena Palace, National Palace, Quinta da Regaleira, Moorish Castle) in one day, then no you don't want to walk so much. For us though, we would have very much hated simply being bussed from one place to the other, making the journey between points as basically forgettable time. (Oh how I hate bus tours, but that's another story :) ).

(more in next post).

This does reminds me a little that in Lisbon, because of I think our desire to just explore all over the city, we ended up taking a LOT of buses, trams, and metro crisscrossing the city to get to various parts of the city and also to explore a bit of non-tourist areas. We did not expect to be taking that many buses but because of the Romanian president's visit to Lisbon (which really sorta "ruined" our day to Belem as the monastery was closed until 2pm) we ended up changing plans and taking the bus to zoom out of Belem (which had become really chaotic because of parades, and whatever official fanfare etc. etc. was going on) to northern parts of Lisbon and to get on Tram 28 to ride to Martim Moniz (and yay, we were able to!).

@Carol, 74 is not old :). Our experience of Pena Palace is not too unlike yours, perhaps with just a little shorter lines (but still lines) and we were there in early October. It did make visiting Pena Palace less fun because even though we were the second timed entry (earliest is at 9:30am, the next was ours at 10am) the interior was already fairly crowded.

A guide for our walking tour of Lisbon several days ago basically said October is no longer low season for Lisbon, unfortunately. :(

@Gail, totally agree with you. Our walk in the early morning, started around 8:30/8:40am (which really isn’t that early) was an awesome cool brisk walk. In a way, my walk between the various destinations was more enjoyable and fun than the destinations themselves which were a little crowded. I felt like I couldn’t linger as much as I’d like in the interior of Pena Palace because it was just wave after wave of groups of people. Where I did feel I could linger was outside the palace like say at the cafe terrace.

(will post more, when I can return to continue these thoughts, hopefully in a few hours....)

Pena Palace to Moorish Castle: Walk or ride?
In spite of more than an hour of looking at websites, I continue to be confused regarding the amount of time it takes to walk from Pena Palace to the Moorish Castle. You state it is about a 44 minute walk.
A handful of websites describe it as a "short walk." From the website That One Point of View: "The Moorish Castle is only a short walk (3 minutes) from the entrance of the Pena Palace, so it is a good next stop if you are starting your day at Pena Palace." I am guessing this is just between entrances??
Using google maps and dropping pins so the route goes from the actual Pena Palace to the actual Moorish Castle, I get 33 minutes walk time. Current drive time is listed at 9 minutes but that is at pick up and drop off points. Walk from Pena Palace to pick up looks like 8 minutes walk and from drop off to the Castle is a 14 minute walk. That is 31 minutes not counting waiting times.
The other factor here is day of week and time of day. As I look at current traffic in Sintra where it is now 1pm on a Saturday, things are ugly. We also are mindful of one way streets. Hence we plan to finish in town and not QdR to have a quicker trip to parking.
We are fit and can walk, but we are more interested in maximum speed in getting between sites. here is our current plan:
Early Bolt/Uber from parking near train station get to Pena Palace at 8:45am for 9:30am entry. (Seems as though the line or the tram might take longer than the walk so I did not buy that add on.)
Walk to Moorish Castle.
Next stop is Quinta da Regaleria, so a 10 minute walk to the west followed by a 15 minute Bolt/Uber to QdR looks quickest.
From there we will walk back to town, about 15 minutes.
Then it will be dependent on time of day. Perhaps Sintra Palace. Perhaps the quick walk to and from Vila Sassetti. Perhaps a drink at a cafe. Then Bolt/Uber back to parking.
Per Rick's advice, we will bring our lunches and drink so we can eat whenever that seems best.
If we have time, which we won't, the other add on could be driving to Monserrate as it seems like parking is possible there and the road goes both directions.
Any advice regarding the above is appreciated. Thank you.

Pena Palace has two entrances along the one-way road that all buses, tuk tuk, taxi, Uber, Bolt have to take
Lake entrance at bottom is first
Then comes Moorish Castle entrance
Then comes Pena Palace main entrance.

Walk from main entrance to Moorish Castle is very short. May be 5 to 10 minutes
But for a vehicle, it will be very very long way (cud be over an hour in the season)

Btw, if you read threads here, most people find Monserrate and Regaleria more interesting than Moorish Castle. But of course, everyone has their own preferences.