Sintra - Castles, Palaces

Sintra is a town near Lisbon where royalty and nobility used to live, and has some sites worth visiting if you have are near Lisbon.

TL/DR; try to book a maybe half day tour with transportation between sites included, or else you might get stuck and we weren't able to call an uber. Or else you can wait for a bus. It's possible to see 4 stops in one day. 

Pre-booking - Bought Pena Palace tickets in advance for opening time, and it did sell out the day of even on for a Thursday visit. We also bought a roundtrip bus ticket from the entrance of the park to the Palace, which saved about 20 min of walking uphill. We bought tickets to Quinta, Moorish Castle, and Monserrate at the gate.

First train from Lisbon was around 7:40-7:50 am on a weekday. The train arrived and left promptly. It was not busy in Lisbon but got more full towards Sintra that some people were even standing. 

We got to Sintra Train Station around 8:20-25 am. While I should've realized buses at the station could've taken us to Pena Palace, I wanted breakfast and saw some ubers so I thought it would be fine.

Bfast at Cafe Saudade- 

The Uber did take us from the restaurant but it was a 15-20 windy ride uphill so it was a bit crazy.

Pena Palace - the must see site in Sintra- 

I booked for 10 AM (first group) - and there were many tour groups. Some of the initial viewing is single file line and it was hard to pass people.

I'd budget 1-2 hours, maybe a little more if you like to take your time viewing artifacts/rooms.

Next we walked a few minutes downhill to Moorish Castle.

Moorish Castle - featured on the Amazing Race:

It was basically like a smaller great wall of China. Great way to get steps/floors in.

I was hoping to call an uber to Quinta but we were stuck, waited about 10-15 minutes. There was a guy willing to drive us for 5 Euro each and we were fine with that (but usually bus is much cheaper- but may be full). 

Quinta de Regaleira

By 11:30ish the line to get in was a few minutes long and there was a lot of people. This is an UNESCO world heritage site and the gardens were pretty.

This is a mini-version of the Initiation well which had a very long wait.

Lunch break - we ubered to the ocean to see Azenhas do Mar. But there were cafe options near Sintra too. 

Palace of Monserrate 

Overall - the Palaces and architecture were nice, and gardens and greenery were nice too. If you want to check out UNESCO sites, Sintra is doable as a daytrip to Lisbon. I just wish I used Lisboa card the day after it expired as showing it gave the 20% discount!