Sintra Palace Tickets and Day Trips
37 listings, 32,074 reviews, a median of 70 EUR against 40 EUR of entries at the two gates. 21 of them start in Lisbon, and only one of the two estates puts a time on the ticket.
Sintra is a place people buy in Lisbon. Of the 37 listings this catalogue tracks for the hill, 21 give Lisbon as their starting point and only 10 give Sintra, and that single line explains most of what follows. The median product runs 480 minutes and just four of the 37 are under two hours, because the day is mostly the getting there and the getting between. On the hill itself the two estates everybody pairs, the Palácio Nacional da Pena and the Quinta da Regaleira, belong to two different owners. There has never been a combined ticket for them and there is no sign of one coming, so the most common assumption a visitor arrives with is the wrong one.
The money on this hill is easier to read than most, because both gates charge the same. Twenty euros at Pena, twenty at the Regaleira, so a visitor who wants both is looking at 40 EUR of entries before anything else. The median listing here costs 70 EUR, the first quartile 55 and the third 106.25, and two listings run past 250 because they are private cars. What the gap between 40 and 70 pays for is the train you did not take, the two buses you did not wait for, and somebody having bought the Pena slot weeks ago.
Seven of the 37 are private tours and six are small group, the highest concentration of small formats anywhere in the Portuguese catalogue, and it shows in the ratings: this hill holds 32,074 of Portugal's 42,662 reviews, three quarters of the country's evidence gathered around one ridge. All 37 carry free cancellation, the only one of the three Portuguese destinations where that figure is unanimous, and five confirm instantly. Four listings are shorter than two hours and one of them declares its location as the Setúbal District, on the far side of the Tagus. Supplier location fields are not geography, and it is worth remembering that before reading too much into any of them.
Two estates, two owners, two tickets, and only one of them has a clock. Everything on this hill follows from that.
Choose a destination in Sintra
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Pena National Palace
Pena sells five tickets, not two. The 12 EUR park ticket has no time slot and does not include the palace terraces, which the body's own list of inclusions…
20 experiences -
Quinta da Regaleira
One ticket at 20 EUR opens the palace, the chapel, the gardens and the initiation well, which is walked as a one-way descent.
18 experiences
Castles Experiences in Sintra
Pena and Regaleira Starting in Sintra Itself, Not on a Coach from Lisbon
No coach from Lisbon: the group meets at Portela de Sintra station and ends at Regaleira, with morning and afternoon departures and the rest of the day free.
Private Sintra Including the Biester Palace, with Tickets on the Premium Option
One of the few Sintra days that stops at the Biester Palace and its rare trees. Entry to Pena and Regaleira is included on the premium option only, not the base.
Private Sintra with a Guide Who Grew Up There, as Far as Azenhas do Mar
The guide grew up in this village, the day is built to order, and the palace visits are optional. Regaleira plus the Pena interior will not fit in one day.
Private Sintra with Pena and Your Choice of Regaleira or Monserrate
Pena is fixed and the second palace is yours to pick, Regaleira or Monserrate, both guided. Tickets are best bought in advance by you, for the timed slots.
Sintra as Mons Lunae, Pena and the Inverted Tower, with Hotel Pickup in Lisbon
Pickup at your hotel in central Lisbon, eight people, and a guide inside both palaces. The Initiatory Well is an inverted tower dropping almost thirty metres.
Sintra on Foot from the City Hall, with Regaleira and a Stop at Piriquita
A walking tour with no vehicle in it: from the city hall down into the village, a stop at Piriquita for the pastries, and Regaleira with the ticket included.
Sintra's Three Monuments with Tickets, and the Pena Essential Visit to the New Palace
Moorish Castle, Regaleira and Pena, all three with tickets and a guide. Pena is the Essential Visit ticket: the New Palace inside, the other rooms bypassed.
Sintra with One Monument Inside, Your Choice, and Guides from the Town
The guides live in Sintra and steer you to one monument to go inside, Pena, the Moorish Castle, Regaleira or the National Palace, the rest seen from viewpoints.
Pena and Regaleira in a Group of Eight, with the Guide Inside Both Palaces
Eight people at most, and the guide goes in with the group at both palaces. The coast leg ends at Estoril, the casino behind Ian Fleming's first Bond novel.
Private Sintra Where Either Monument Can Be Swapped, with Cabo da Roca and Cascais
Pena and Regaleira are the default pair, and either can be swapped for the Moorish Castle, Monserrate or the National Palace. An hour and a half free in town.
Regaleira Guided to the Chapel and the Tower, with Pena and Monserrate as Add-Ons
The core is Regaleira with its ticket, the Chapel of the Holy Trinity and the Regaleira Tower. Pena at 9:30 and Monserrate at noon are separate add-ons.
Regaleira Inside and Pena from Outside, with Lunch at Colares
The Quinta da Regaleira is entered, including the Initiation Well, while Pena is seen from outside. Lunch with the group at Colares, plus Guincho beach.
Sintra and Cascais Small Group with the Pena Essential Ticket and Lunch in Colares
The Pena Essential Ticket is included, guide on the terraces and the interior at your own pace, then lunch in the wine village of Colares, paid on the day.
Sintra, Cabo da Roca and Cascais for Eight, with Pickup in Your Quarter
Eight people at most, and seven pickup points across Lisbon, so you are collected in your own neighbourhood rather than crossing the city at dawn.
Sintra for Eight with Every Ticket Paid, Pena Palace Interior Included
The Pena Park and Palace entry and the Regaleira ticket are all inside the price, with the guide staying with the group for the whole day. Eight people max.
Sintra Half Day, the Pena Essential Ticket and the Conical Chimneys of the National Palace
Half a day that stays in Sintra: the Pena Essential Ticket, the Sabuga fountain and the two conical chimneys of the National Palace, seen from the outside only.
Sintra with Pena Last: the 1862 Bakery, Colares and Cabo da Roca
Nine hours in a group of eight, in English, with Pena kept for the end of the day and travesseiros from a bakery run by the same family since 1862.
Sintra with the Detour to Penedo, the Village Off the Circuit
The road from Pena turns off to Penedo, a mountain village outside the tourist circuit, with the Moorish Castle in view the whole way. Two pickup points.
Sintra with Three Pena Ticket Options and Regaleira You Book Yourself
Choose at booking between the Pena interior, the terraces and park, or no ticket at all. Regaleira is booked separately by you, for the 11.30 slot.
Coast First, Sintra After: Guided Initiation Well at Regaleira
The minivan runs the Atlantic coast in the morning and reaches Sintra afterwards, with the guide taking the group down the Initiation Well at Regaleira.
Pena Approached on Foot Through the Gardens, Away from the Gate Queue
The group walks up through the park to reach Pena and skips the crowd at the main gate. That walk makes it unsuitable if you have trouble on foot.
Private Regaleira with the Ticket in Hand, and the Sintra Historic Centre After
A private guide, the entry ticket already bought, and the story of António Carvalho Monteiro, who had every corner of the estate built to an esoteric plan.
Private Sintra Where You Pick Three Monuments Out of Six
Six monuments are proposed and you choose three, including Monserrate and the Moorish Castle. The skip-the-line option puts the Pena ticket in the price.
Sintra by Electric Van, Ending at the Belém Tower and the Pastéis de Belém
The van is electric, Regaleira is guided privately, and the last stop is Belém, for the pastéis and the 16th-century tower, before the drop-off at your hotel.
Ratings collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
Getting to the hill, and getting around it
Parques de Sintra sends independent visitors by train, on the CP Sintra line out of Rossio, Entrecampos or Oriente. It does not publish a fare on the page that gives the directions, and the operator's own site would not render for us, so this page does not quote a train price. We would rather leave that blank than repeat a number from a blog.
What the body does state plainly is the last mile. Private cars are not allowed at the monument gates, and visitors are pointed at peripheral car parks such as Lourel. From the railway station the local buses do the climbing: the 434 runs up to the Moorish castle and Pena, the 435 to the Quinta da Regaleira and Monserrate. Two different routes for the two estates, which is worth knowing before you plan a morning that hops between them.
This is the practical reason 21 of the 37 listings start in Lisbon. A self-organised Sintra day is a train, two buses, two ticket purchases from two separate websites, and a timed slot at one of them. A booked one is a vehicle at your hotel. Both are defensible. Only one of them is a single decision.
Two estates, two owners, one hill
The combined ticket that has never existed
Parques de Sintra runs eleven sites on this hill and the Quinta da Regaleira is not one of them. It belongs to the Fundação Cultursintra, a separate foundation with its own ticket office, its own opening hours and its own refund rules. The two estates are close enough that almost every itinerary pairs them, which is exactly why so many people arrive expecting one purchase and find two.
The consequence shows up in the catalogue rather than at the gate. Both gates charge 20 EUR, yet the median Regaleira listing costs 97.50 EUR against 68.50 for Pena. The reason is the shape of the products, not the price of the place: six of the Regaleira's 18 listings are private tours against two of Pena's 20. The Regaleira is also the only category on the Portuguese side of this catalogue served by all three suppliers, with 13 listings from Viator, four from Tiqets and one from Civitatis.
| Palácio Nacional da Pena | Quinta da Regaleira | |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Parques de Sintra, eleven sites on this hill | Fundação Cultursintra, this estate only |
| Adult entry at the gate | 20 EUR | 20 EUR |
| Timed entry | Yes, on the palace | None published |
| Who gets in free | Nothing found beyond the youth, senior and family rates | Residents of Sintra, on proof of address |
| Listings in this catalogue | 20 | 18 |
| Reviews | 30,027 | 2,770 |
| Weighted rating | 4.851 | 4.761 |
| Median price here | 68.50 EUR | 97.50 EUR |
| Median length | 480 min | 330 min |
| Suppliers | Viator only | Viator, Tiqets and Civitatis |
What actually fits into a Sintra day
The ceiling travellers give each other is two monuments, and it is the same ceiling they give each other for the Loire and for Windsor. What makes Sintra interesting is that somebody in the same thread reports doing three and describes having time left over.
We had AM entry ticket at Pena and had no problem moving at our desired pace. We had plenty of time for Moorish Castle (good), and ample time for 2pm entry at Quinta da Regalaria.
Both accounts are correct and they describe different days. Three works when all three are on the same ridge and the first ticket is a morning one, because then the walking between them is the only transport in the day. It stops working the moment one of the three is an hour of road away, which is what an eight-hour product with a coastal stop actually is. When the earliest Pena slot you can get is late morning, local advice is to reverse the order and finish at Pena rather than start there.
The catalogue prices that arithmetic openly, and the spread is worth looking at before booking. Two listings visit the same five names, Sintra, Pena, the Regaleira, Cabo da Roca and Cascais. One costs 30 EUR over 540 minutes and is rated 4.8 across 1,268 reviews. The other costs 80 EUR over 600 minutes and is rated 4.9 across 3,801. A third, which says in its title that all tickets are included, costs 120 EUR. Since the two entries alone are 40 EUR, most of that spread is not a better day out. It is whether the tickets are inside the price or still to be bought.
When to go, and why the hour beats the month
Sintra is one of the few places in this catalogue where the calendar barely moves. Pena publishes identical times in January and in midsummer, the park from 09:00 to 19:00 and the palace from 09:30 to 18:30, so the date on the ticket buys the same hours whenever it falls. The Quinta da Regaleira is the only thing on the hill whose opening times change with the season: 10:00 to 18:30 from January to March and from October to December, gardens from 09:00 to 19:30 with the palace from 10:00 to 19:00 between April and September. It also closes on 1 January and on 24, 25 and 31 December, which are the only fixed closures on the hill we could confirm.
What does move, week to week, is availability. Sintra guides and returning visitors say the same thing about the 2026 season: the timed entries sell out, and the two ends of the day are where the space is. The first entry at 09:30 and the late afternoon slots around 16:30 to 17:00 are the ones people report getting. The photograph at the top of this page shows the ridge under low cloud with the towers half lost in it, which is a condition regular visitors describe often enough to be worth packing for.
The ratings on this hill disagree, and the reason is not the place
The best rated product in the whole Portuguese catalogue and the worst rated one are both on this hill, close enough that most itineraries put them in the same morning. The best is a private day out of Lisbon taking Pena and the Regaleira, 130 EUR, a flat 5.0 across 723 reviews. The worst is a plain entry ticket to the Regaleira, 25 EUR, 4.1 across 54 reviews. Nobody is rating the estate in the second case. They are rating a voucher, bought at 25 EUR when the gate charges 20, for a place that lets you walk in without one. The gap between 5.0 and 4.1 measures the product and not the palace, and it is the single most useful thing our own numbers say about Sintra.
What this page cannot tell you
Three things stayed open after a day of reading official pages, and they are listed here rather than guessed at. We could not confirm the price of a CP train ticket from Lisbon to Sintra, or the fares on the 434 and 435 buses, from any source we would put our name to. We could not resolve whether the Lisboa Card covers the Quinta da Regaleira: the issuer's own page does not name it, and a reseller states flatly that it is not included, which is a second-hand answer to a first-hand question. And Monserrate, the third estate people add when they have a fourth hour, is under scaffolding: two visitors within a week of each other reported it, one saying to skip it and the other saying the interior was open and better than Pena's. We have not been able to settle that one.
Questions people ask before a day at Sintra
How do I get to Sintra from Lisbon without booking a tour?
By train on the CP Sintra line from Rossio, Entrecampos or Oriente, then the 434 bus for the Moorish castle and Pena or the 435 for the Regaleira and Monserrate. Cars are turned away at the monument gates and sent to peripheral car parks. We found no fare we would quote for either the train or the buses. For comparison, 21 of the 37 listings here carry the vehicle for you.
Can I buy one ticket for Pena and the Quinta da Regaleira?
No, and this is the assumption that costs people the most time on arrival. They are owned by two different bodies, Parques de Sintra and the Fundação Cultursintra, and there is no official combined ticket. It is 20 EUR at each gate, bought separately.
How many places can I see in one day here?
Two without hurrying. One traveller reports three, with a morning entry at Pena and all three on the same ridge, and that account is credible for exactly those conditions. In this catalogue 25 of the 37 listings run eight hours or more, and the long ones spend a good part of that on the road to the coast.
Why do two tours with the same stops cost 30 EUR and 80 EUR?
Both visit Sintra, Pena, the Regaleira, Cabo da Roca and Cascais, and both are rated above 4.8 over more than 1,200 reviews. The cheaper runs 540 minutes, the dearer 600. The 40 EUR of entrance tickets is usually the difference: a third listing puts all tickets in the price and charges 120.
When do the tickets sell out?
The timed ones at Pena, and they go furthest ahead for the middle of the morning. Local guides and returning visitors point at the 09:30 first entry and the late slots around 16:30 to 17:00 as the ones still available. The Regaleira publishes no time slot at all, which is why it survives a late decision better.
Does the month matter?
Less here than almost anywhere else in this catalogue. Pena keeps one timetable all year, park 09:00 to 19:00 and palace 09:30 to 18:30. Only the Regaleira changes, running 10:00 to 18:30 from October to March and staying open until 19:30 from April to September, with four closure dates in December and January.
Which Sintra product is rated best, and which worst?
Best: a 130 EUR private day from Lisbon covering Pena and the Regaleira, 5.0 over 723 reviews. Worst: a 25 EUR Regaleira entry ticket, 4.1 over 54 reviews, sold above a 20 EUR gate price. Both are on the same hill, which is the clearest sign that these ratings measure products rather than places.
Data verified on. Prices, hours and transport from parquesdesintra.pt and regaleira.pt. Listing figures from the 37 Sintra products in this catalogue. Traveller quotes from r/TravelPortugal.