Spending a day in Sintra with its romantic fairy tale architecture is quite different from the city of Lisbon. The historic palaces and gardens are all considered UNESCO heritage sites and used to be where the Portuguese royals used to vacation at. The city itself is still considered an expensive area to live in and has been consistently ranked one of the best places to live in Portugal. After two days in Lisbon, visiting Sintra was a nice change of pace with more greenery and fresh air.
Read More| Weekend in Lisbon
While I was only able to visit two of the many sites in Sintra, I wish I had also been able to visit some of the other places such as Montserrate Palace. Visit https://www.parquesdesintra.pt/en/ for more information about all the different parks, palaces, and gardens in Sintra that I was not able to see in case you have more than one day to visit Sintra.
How to Get To Sintra
We personally found an Uber or a taxi to be really convenient to reaching Sintra. With four people, the cost of 20 euros one way was affordable, and we were dropped right at the doorstep of Quinta de Regalaira in 15 minutes without having to worry about the hassle of parking.
On the way back, we decided to take the train. The other easiest way to travel between Sintra and Lisbon is to take the train from Rossio Station in the center of Lisbon. Trains leave every 30 minutes. The trip takes around 40 minutes, and the roundtrip ticket is approximately 5 euros per person.
Driving a car to Sintra is highly not recommended because parking is really difficult to find.
How to Get Around Sintra
The 434 Bus is a great affordable option that stops at most of the important sights to visit in Sintra. The main stops on the route are at Pena Palace, Moorish Palace, and the National Palace of Sintra.
Otherwise, there are many tuk tuks and taxis everywhere ready to pick up people. Just expect the price of using these more luxurious methods of traveling to be a lot more expensive. To get from Quinta da Regalaira to the entrance to the Pena Palace gardens was 20 euros! This price was standard to get between any of the Sintra sites and did not vary between car or tuk tuk.
What to See & Do
There is so much to do in Sintra, but if you want to see the palaces properly, I recommend picking two to three places to visit in a day. All the palaces close by 5 PM in the winter which didn't allow for as much time to properly see more than two, but visiting in the summer would allow you to visit more palaces since they close around 7 PM.
Quinta da Regalaira
The garden of Quinta da Regalaira is unparalleled by any of the other gardens in Sintra. This beautiful site opened earlier than the other sites in Sintra when we went, and visiting it first in the day means avoiding a lot of other people with tours that visit Pena Palace first. Expect to spend around an hour and half wandering through the gardens itself.
Tickets| 5-8 euros
Times| 9:30 AM - 5 PM/winter or 7 PM/summer
The gardens have several spots to visit, so be sure to grap a map when you buy tickets. My favorite spots were the Initiation Well, the Guardian's Gate, the Labyrinthic Grotto and the Regalaira Tower.
Pena Palace
The walk through the gardens takes about 20-30 minutes to reach the top where the Palace sits, and there's not much to see on the way except enjoying the stroll. The steep hill can be difficult for some to walk so I recommend taking the 434 bus instead. Our ticket was for exploring the grounds only but not to enter the palace but theres more than enough to admire just from outside.
Tickets| 7.13 euros for park/13.30 euros for park and palace
Times| 9:30 AM - 8 PM
The fairytale atmosphere of Sintra is well portrayed with the whimsical colors and tall towers of Pena Palace. Seeing the palace as the sun was setting only enhanced the Disney-esque feeling of walking around the grounds.
Town Center
The town center is right outside of the National Palace of Sintra and has several small boutiques and cafes to grab something warm to drink or do a little bit of shopping.
That's all for Sintra! We headed back to Lisbon for dinner using the train which had a ticket station to buy. The stop to get off at is Rossio Station to be back where you started.