Sintra from Lisbon: the €5.10 train, the Pena Palace time slot, or a coach tour

💡 The Short Version: Sintra is a CP train from Rossio, about 40 minutes, €5.10 return. The booking that matters is Pena Palace: you choose a date and time when you buy, there is no tolerance for lateness, and the palace is about 30 minutes from the park gate. Buy the Essential ticket (€20) from Parques de Sintra for an afternoon slot and spend the morning in the park. On your own, Pena and the Moorish Castle come to about €51 with the train and the bus; the new Viver Sintra: Palácios Reais ticket (€42) covers Pena, the National Palace of Sintra and 24 hours on the buses. Tour coaches have stopped outside the town centre since 8 July 2026. Or book a tour: the small-group tour with ticketsad (from £58.08) puts the transport, Pena, Cabo da Roca and Cascais in one booking.

Getting there on your own

CP’s urban fare sheet (in force from 1 January 2026), Scotturb and Parques de Sintra, 1 October 2026.

• Train: CP’s Sintra line from Rossio, Entrecampos or Oriente, about 40 minutes. A return is €5.10, loaded on a Navegante occasional card (€0.50, bought once and valid for a year). The Lisboa Card (a discount only at the palaces) and the 24-hour Carris/Metro/CP ticket (€11.40) also cover the line; Lisbon public transport explains the Navegante card. CP’s combined Train&Bus ticket is suspended, so ignore any guide that sells it.
• Buses from Sintra station: Scotturb 434 runs the Pena circuit (station, National Palace, Moorish Castle, Pena) and 435 runs to Quinta da Regaleira, Seteais and Monserrate. A 24-hour hop-on ticket for both is €13.50, 8% less online at sintra434.com; Scotturb says the buses run every 10 minutes on average. Carris Metropolitana 1253 serves Regaleira, Monserrate, the Capuchos convent and Cabo da Roca (carrismetropolitana.pt).
• On foot: the National Palace is 10 to 15 minutes from the station. Parques de Sintra marks trails up to Pena; the Santa Maria Trail is 1.8 km and takes an hour from São Pedro de Sintra.
• By car: private cars cannot drive up to Pena or the Moorish Castle at any time.
• Town rules from 8 July 2026: the council has banned tour coaches from the centre of the town, sending them to car parks outside it, such as Lourel, and ride-hailing cars pick up and drop off only at set points (cm-sintra.pt).

National Palace of Sintra. Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tours from Lisbon

A tour adds the transport and, on the “with tickets” listings, the Pena entry, and it adds Cabo da Roca and Cascais, which are awkward by train. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” price on 1 October 2026. A day on your own at Pena and the Moorish Castle costs about €51 (£44).

Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle. Photo: Jakub Hałun, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Small group, with tickets

From £58.08 · 4.9 stars from 1,888 reviews · 9 hours

Lisbon: Sintra, Pena, Cascais & Cabo Day Tour With Ticketsad is a small-group guided trip through the colourful Pena Palace, Sintra’s historic centre, the cliffs at Cabo da Roca and Cascais. The title says tickets are included.

Half day with Pena Palace tickets

From £68.33 · 4.9 stars from 256 reviews · 5 hours

From Lisbon: Sintra Half-Day Tour with Pena Palace Ticketsad is a local guide, the Pena entrance and a walk through the old town with a local pastry.

Pena and Quinta da Regaleira

From £44.42 · 4.7 stars from 2,520 reviews · 8 hours

From Lisbon: Sintra, Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleiraad visits Pena and the gardens of Regaleira, with its tunnels.

Private, by car

From £73.67 · 5.0 stars from 507 reviews · 5 to 8 hours

Lisbon: Pena Palace, Moorish Castle, Quinta da Regaleira & Sintraad is a private guided tour in a car, with a guide to Pena, the Moorish Castle, Regaleira and the old town.

The most-reviewed coach tour

From £20.67 · 4.7 stars from 24,221 reviews · 9½ hours

Lisbon: Sintra, Pena, Regaleira & Cabo da Roca & Cascais Coastad has more reviews than any other Sintra tour on GetYourGuide, with free time at Cabo da Roca and views of Cascais, Guincho and Estoril. At that price the entries are not in it: Pena (€20) and Regaleira (€20) alone cost about £34. Buy your own Pena slot, or choose a listing that says tickets are included.

What each place costs

Every Parques de Sintra site is open daily except 24 and 25 December and 31 December and 1 January. Adult prices, read on 1 October 2026, are from Parques de Sintra.

• Quinta da Regaleira is run separately and costs €20. Entry is by slot every 30 minutes, with a one-hour grace period. Its only official online ticket office is regaleira.byblueticket.pt (regaleira.pt, 1 October 2026).
• Buy several in one purchase on the Parques de Sintra site and take 5% off two sites, 6% off three, 7% off four, 8% off five and 10% off six.
• Viver Sintra: Palácios Reais (€42, launched 24 April 2026) is Pena’s Essential visit and park, the National Palace of Sintra and 24 hours on the Scotturb 434 and 435. Bought separately, the same comes to €46.50. Viver Sintra also sells a €35 ticket with the National Palace and Queluz, which has no Pena in it.
• Portuguese residents enter free on Sundays and national holidays, which makes those days busy.

What to see

Pick Pena and one more: a day is not long enough for all of it.

1. Pena Palace and its park. A hilltop palace of coloured terraces and towers, built for Ferdinand II. Spend the morning in the park (the High Cross, the Temple of Columns, the Valley of the Lakes, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla) and go to the palace for your afternoon slot, which Parques de Sintra says is quieter. Pena Palace tickets has the ticket types and the route.
2. Moorish Castle. Granite walls along the ridge, on the 434 route between the town and Pena. Go on the way down from Pena, before the 17:30 last entry.
3. National Palace of Sintra. The palace in the old town with the two conical chimneys, which Parques de Sintra calls the oldest palace in Portugal. It needs no bus.
4. Quinta da Regaleira. Gardens, tunnels and the Initiatic Well, on the 435 route. Choose it instead of the Moorish Castle if you prefer gardens to walls.
5. Skip: the Capuchos convent needs bus 1253 and a 40-minute walk, and Monserrate is a palace and park in its own right. Both are for a second day.

Moorish Castle, Sintra. Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A day, hour by hour

• The slot decides the day. The time on a Pena ticket is your entry to the palace, not the park, and a late arrival is refused with no refund.
• Bags: lockers and a cloakroom are at the park entrance and at the start of the palace route.
• Wind and fire risk can close Pena, the Moorish Castle, Monserrate and the Capuchos: they were shut on 16 December 2025 for strong winds. Check the notices page the day before.

Combining it with somewhere else

Most coach tours put Cabo da Roca and Cascais after Sintra. On your own, Cascais is a 38-minute train from Cais do Sodré, and Parques de Sintra lists bus 1624 from Cascais bus terminal for Cabo da Roca. Sintra is one of the day trips from Lisbon, which compares it with Cascais, Évora and the coach tours to Óbidos and Nazaré. 3 days in Lisbon puts Sintra on Day 3, with Pena at an afternoon slot. For the other bookings, including Belém, see what to book before you go to Lisbon.