Sintra, located thirty minutes by train from Lisbon, is home to several palaces and castles, including Palácio Nacional da Pena (the National Palace of Pena) (one of Portugal’s Seven Wonders) and Castelo dos Mouros (the Moorish Castle), both of which we were looking forward to visiting.
Spoiler alert: another Seven Wonder strikeout.
Getting to Sintra from Lisbon is a breeze. Just hop on a commuter train showing Sintra as the final destination and ride to the end of the line. Once in Sintra, you have several options for getting to the top of the hill where the palace and castle are located.
First, walking uphill for about an hour. It’s a steep hill. You’ve been forewarned.
Second, on Bus 434, the “tourist bus”. For €13.50 per person you can get a hop on hop off bus ticket good for 24 hours. This bus that makes a continuous loop among the train station and certain tourist sites, including Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle.
A second “tourist bus”, Bus 435, goes to other area attractions, notably Palácio Nacional de Sintra (the National Palace of Sintra) and Parque e Palácio de Monserrate (the Park and Palace of Monserrate).
Buying a ticket for the tourist bus has two distinct advantages. One, it is easy. Two, the ticket is good for 24 hours. Meaning you get the benefit of the ticket for either an entire day or, if you are staying overnight, an afternoon followed by the next morning.
The downside is potentially long lines and wait times to get on a crowded bus, depending on when you visit. We never saw a long bus line or overcrowded bus during our visit in the last week of September. I’ll bet July and August are a different story. Google reviews are, let’s say, not good during peak tourist times.
Third, by tuk-tuk. They’re everywhere. We were quoted €15.00 each to get a one-way ride up to the entrance to Parque de Pena (Pena Park). No thanks. At least with an expensive bus ticket you get a ride back down.
Fourth, by taxi. Stephanie saw taxis offering trips from the train station to Pena Park for €12.00. I wouldn’t be surprised if this price fluctuates during the year.
Fifth, take an Uber or Bolt up the hill. This is what we chose to do. Our ride up to the park entrance cost €12.50 total (including tip). Don’t expect to get a ride quickly. We waited nearly 40 minutes to get a confirmed driver to pick us up near the train station.
If you choose a tuk-tuk, taxi, or ride share going uphill, remember that you need to know how to get back downhill, i.e. find a ride and pay up, or walk.
Our train from Lisbon arrived in Sintra shortly after 1:00 PM. After walking around for a few minutes we started the process of getting a Bolt ride. It took forever, to the point that we probably just should have jumped in a taxi. We finally got picked up about 1:45 PM.
The ride to the park entrance from the train station took 25 minutes, largely because of mass congestion in certain places. The roads are narrow, mostly one way, and chock full of cars and busses. One slow driver backs up a lot of vehicles.
Our plan to arrive early was decimated because of how long it took us to get from the train station in Sintra to the park entrance.
We walked up to the entrance to Pena Park at about 2:15 PM, showed our tickets, and waltzed right in with no waiting. This was the entrance to the park. The entrance to the palace is another 10 to 15 minute walk uphill.
Signs indicate that the walk to the palace is a 30 minute walk from the park entrance. You’d have to walk really, really slow for it to take that long. Note that there is shuttle bus that will drive you from the park entrance up to the palace for €3 roundtrip.
We bought our Pena Palace tour tickets several days in advance to take advantage of an online discount of 15%, so our tickets cost €17 each instead of €20. Timed tickets are required for the interior palace tour. We opted for a mid-afternoon time slot, 2:30 PM, hoping that the larger tour groups would be long gone prior to our arrival.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. We berated ourselves for being foolish enough to think 2:30 PM would be an acceptable time slot.
After entering the palace grounds we quickly found the line for the interior tour. An employee verified that we had 2:30 PM tickets before directing us to the back of the line. It was a long line. No real surprise there.
Right on time our line started moving forward. We entered the palace at about 2:40 PM, smack in the middle of a line of 275 people. Yes, the palace sells 275 tickets for each 30 minute time slot.
This is a major problem because the palace is not large enough to comfortably accommodate 275 people every 30 minutes. Nowhere near large enough. It is a one-way, narrow walking route. For the duration of our 45 minute walking tour, we were never more than 2 feet away from 4 other people. Or more.
Word association game: bumper to bumper; conveyor belt; nose to tail; sardines in a can; cattle drive.
To make matters worse, the palace rooms are small and really not that interesting. Getting out of line is near impossible. Not that there is much to see, but still.
Pena Palace (the interior tour) joins the list of activities that we were looking forward to, but quickly decided are massively overrated and not worth the time or money to experience.
But if you must go on the interior tour, be the first or last. Literally be the first in line for the day or the very last in line for the day. Not first or last in a time slot, but first or last for the day. That’s your best chance for having a good experience during the interior tour.
After the interior tour ended we spent a few minutes walking around the exterior terraces. The views from Pena Palace are great. You can even see the Atlantic Ocean.
Anyone with a ticket to the park can access the palace’s exterior terraces. You don’t need an interior tour ticket to enjoy the spectacular views. Had we known better, we would have purchased only the Park of Pena tickets for €10 each and skipped the interior tour.
Pena Park surrounds the palace. This large park is basically woods with walking trails between points of interest, such as a lake and a chalet. After the disastrous interior tour, we did not have the urge to walk through the woods or see the other sites.
Instead, we walked 15 minutes up the road to the Moorish Castle. Tickets to the castle cost €12.00 (discounted to €10.00 if purchased online several days in advance). From the ticket booth there is about a 10 minute walk through the woods on a cobblestone sidewalk to reach the castle.
There is also a ticket booth at the castle entrance if you walk up from town on one of the trails and bypass the main entry.
Upon getting our tickets scanned at the castle’s entrance, the employee cheerfully said “I hope you’re ready for some exercise.” The Moorish Castle experience is largely a walk around the exterior walls and towers. Up and down. Up and down. Definitely good exercise. Perhaps not the best idea if you are afraid of heights.
The Moorish Castle is very impressive and really cool. It makes Castelo de São Jorge in Lisbon look like a kiddie castle.
After about 45 minutes in the Moorish Castle we headed out. We decided to take one of the trails from the castle down the hill into town. It took us maybe 20 minutes to walk down to civilization. Unfortunately our efforts to then get a Bolt ride to the Sintra train station were unsuccessful. We kept getting the same message as we did earlier in the day – drivers are busy or will not accept the ride request.
So we walked another 20 minutes through town to the train station, arriving just in time to catch the 5:36 PM train to Lisbon Oriente.
Garrett and Stephanie
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