We’re doing the Portugal tour in April. We arrive 2 days before tour starts. Has anyone done a day trip to Sintra? The couple we are traveling with gets there the day before the tour starts so our only option is to go to Sintra the day the tour starts. I don’t know if there is enough time to take the train over there, see a couple or the famous castles, and then get back in time
For the first meeting. Thoughts?
Posted by
Chicago
4123 posts
You can easily take the train to Sintra, spend some time there, and return to Lisbon for your tour welcome meeting. Looks like you would need to get back before 4pm.
How much you can see while in Sintra would be up to you.
Posted by
Atlanta, GA
131 posts
Hi cindy26,
It's been some years since we took the RS Portugal tour. We also arrived early and booked a full tour to Sintra and Caicais. It was a minivan size vehicle. We enjoyed the day tour. If you want more details, please message me and I'll pull out my old journal for more info.
Posted by
Chicago
4123 posts
This is a great group tour that i took in 2024, but it would not work for the day your RS tour starts as you would not make it back in time.
https://lisbonriders.com/group-tours/sintra-cascais/
You could do it the day before without your friends.
Posted by
anyplace picturesque
48 posts
Allow 8h including r/t train.
Posted by
Minnesota
714 posts
I’m taking this RS tour in March and will take a group tour by Inside Lisbon to Sintra the day BEFORE the welcome meeting. It’s about eight hours long, so I don’t think there would be time on the day of the meeting. However I see on their website that they offer a private half-day tour, although it doesn’t seem to include the castles themselves. You could contact them to see if a private tour could be tweaked to your specifications.
I think I found them in the Rick Steves guidebook. Here’s a link to the private tour page.
https://www.insidelisbon.com/en/tours/sintra-cascais-private-half-day-tour
Posted by
Pleasant Hill, Ca
303 posts
We took a day trip from Lisbon to Sintra on our own. It was a full day. We were unlucky with weather. Sintra was fine but the Peña Palace was in a cloud with drizzle and rain. So we have to go back.
The day the tour started we took the streetcar out to the end and partway back, then walked. We also had to change hotels that day, not something I prefer but we had a hotel credit due to a Covid cancelled trip from the year before.
There is lots to see in Lisbon too.