Sintra Map: Palaces, Trails, Beaches and Stations Pinned

Dark Red: The Ticketed Sights

Eleven pins carry an entrance fee or sit inside a ticketed site. There are the two Pena entrances (main gate and Lakes gate), the Moorish Castle, the National Palace of Sintra, Quinta da Regaleira, Monserrate, the Convent of the Capuchos, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla, Cruz Alta, the Cabo da Roca Lighthouse interpretation area and Queluz Palace.

Two of these are easy to misread. Cruz Alta, the high point of the Serra de Sintra at 528 m, is inside Pena Park, so it needs the ticketed Park and National Palace of Pena admission rather than being a free viewpoint. The Chalet of the Countess of Edla is included in the Park of Pena tickets, so it costs nothing extra, but its own entrance gate closes 12:00-14:00.

Queluz Palace sits far to the east of the others, about 1 km from Queluz-Belas station on the CP Sintra Line. Treat it as a separate outing rather than part of a Sintra day. Full prices and hours for every pin are on our palaces and castles page.

Green, Blue, Ochre and Grey

The three green pins are free. Villa Sassetti opens 10:00-18:00 at no charge and is the start of one of the marked trails to the castle. Seteais Palace is a hotel, and on this map its role is as the start of the Seteais Trail. The Sanctuary of Peninha is on Parques de Sintra's list of sites, reached from the 1253 stop on Estrada do Cabo da Roca.

The seven blue pins run along the coast from south to north: Cabo da Roca cape, Praia da Ursa, Praia da Adraga, Praia Grande, Praia das Maçãs, Azenhas do Mar and Praia do Magoito. The two ochre pins are the towns, Sintra Vila and Colares, a wine village in a demarcated region dating to 1908. The single grey pin is Sintra train station, the terminus of the CP Sintra Line from Lisbon and the natural anchor for any walking map of Sintra.

The Town Layer Around the Station

Sintra station sits at the east end of the town, and the National Palace lies a short way west of it. Parques de Sintra times the walk at 10 to 15 minutes. Wikidata's point for the municipality, 38.797361, -9.390417, falls within metres of the palace's official GPS figure, 38°47'50.50"N 9°23'25.87"W.

Everything you need on arrival is inside this layer. The main tourist office at Praça da República 23 opens 10:00-18:30, and a second office at the station on Avenida Dr. Miguel Bombarda opens 09:00-13:00 and 14:00-17:30. The pastry institutions sit here too. Casa Piriquita dates its founding to 1862, and Fábrica das Verdadeiras Queijadas da Sapa at Volta do Duche 12 appears on the government's Commerce with History register and closes Mondays. Quinta da Regaleira stands west of the palace, at Quinta da Regaleira 9 on the road out towards Seteais, so it belongs to the town layer even though it is ticketed. Our Sintra old town guide covers this layer in detail.

The Hill Layer: Pena, the Castle and Cruz Alta

Behind the town the Serra rises to the south. The Moorish Castle pin sits at 38°47'24"N, 9°23'21"W on the near crest. Pena lies south of the castle, with its main entrance at 38°47'16"N, 9°23'15"W and a second Lakes entrance to the northwest. Cruz Alta, whose Wikidata point is 38.78056, -9.39111, marks the summit of the Serra de Sintra at 528 m, with views to Lisbon and Cascais, the Atlantic and the Setúbal area.

This layer is where driving fails as a strategy. Calçada da Pena has been closed to general private traffic since restrictions took effect around December 2019, and private vehicles are not authorised for the Moorish Castle either. Parques de Sintra points visitors to pedestrian trails, public transport and the peripheral car parks. The hill also carries the quiet pins. The Chalet of the Countess of Edla sits in Pena Park's western sector, and the Convent of the Capuchos lies over the far side of the ridge, reached by bus 1253 and a 40-minute walk. Pin positions for these sites come straight from Parques de Sintra's published GPS figures.

The Western Slope and the Coast

Cross the ridge and the map changes character. Monserrate sits in its own valley on the southwest slope. Beyond it the land runs down through Colares, a village at the heart of Portugal's westernmost wine region, where the Ramisco grape grows ungrafted in sand less than 1 km from the Atlantic. The Adega Regional de Colares, founded in 1931 and describing itself as the country's oldest wine cooperative, opens Monday to Saturday 09:00-12:00 and 14:00-17:00.

The coast pins then line up along the Atlantic. Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point of mainland Europe, and its lighthouse, ordered by the Marquis of Pombal in 1758 and lit since 1772, is the second oldest on the Portuguese coast. Praia da Ursa sits just south of the cape at the bottom of a steep unofficial trail. North of the cape come Adraga, Praia Grande with its catalogued dinosaur footprints, the apple-named Maçãs, Azenhas do Mar built into its cliff, and Magoito at the northern end. The summer tram closes the loop, running nearly 11 km between Estefania and Praia das Maçãs in about 45 minutes. Our beaches guide and Cabo da Roca page cover this layer.

The Three Marked Trails Up the Hill

Parques de Sintra publishes three marked trails to the Moorish Castle, with start points, distances and times. They are the best walking links on the map of Sintra, and they connect free pins to ticketed ones. The Villa Sassetti Trail is the fastest at 45 minutes, starting at Largo Ferreira de Castro. The Santa Maria Trail takes about an hour from the Info Parques de Sintra point in São Pedro de Sintra. The Seteais Trail is the longest at around 1 hour 30, starting at the Seteais Palace hotel.

Inside Pena Park, remember that the walk from the park gate to the palace itself takes about 30 minutes, mostly uphill. That matters for timed tickets. For more routes beyond the monument trails, see our hiking page.

Which Bus Reaches Which Pin

Two operators split the hill. Scotturb's 434 loop runs from the station and the Lourel car park up past the Moorish Castle and Pena, and also serves the National Palace along with the 435. The 435 runs from the Lourel car park to Monserrate, and Scotturb names Regaleira among the monuments its buses connect. Carris Metropolitana's line 1253 leaves Sintra station and runs the long way round, past São Pedro de Sintra, Regaleira, Seteais, Monserrate, Colares, Almoçageme and Azóia to Cabo da Roca, in a circular route back via Galamares. Its published departures from the station run frequently through the day, from 06:30 through to an evening 20:00 departure.

The 434's tariff sheet lists a Circuito da Pena round trip at $9.98 (€8.65), a one-way leg at $5.42 (€4.70), a daily tourist ticket at $21.20 (€18.35) and a Villa Express four-palace option at $7.15 (€6.20), with no route described. Scotturb publishes no fare page on scotturb.com, so the tariff document linked from sintra434.com is the source. Our getting around page compares the options in full.

The Walking Shortlist

The town layer is walkable once you are off the train. Parques de Sintra times the station to the National Palace and the station to Villa Sassetti at 10 to 15 minutes each. Add the Villa Sassetti Trail and you reach the Moorish Castle on foot, about an hour from the station by our sum.

The coast is different. Bus 1253 is the practical link to Cabo da Roca, Colares and the western slope, and the trail down to Praia da Ursa is steep and unofficial. Our Sintra in 1 day itinerary strings these links together hour by hour.

Car Parks: No Coordinates Found

The Portela de Sintra, Cavaleira and Lourel car parks are not on this map. No official coordinates were found for them. EMES and the municipality give an address for Portela only, at Avenida General Mário Firmino Miguel, 2710-553 Sintra.

That car park has 250 spaces with rotative tariffs capped at $2.08 (€1.80) per day. The municipality runs a free shuttle from the Portela and Cavaleira peripheral car parks to the station, guaranteed every 7 minutes between 09:00 and 20:00 on a 24-seat wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Cavaleira was reported at the time of the 2019 restriction as having more than 1,500 spaces.

The gap is one of sourcing, not importance.

Tourist Offices: Addresses Without Points

Three tourist offices appear in the official listings with addresses but no coordinates, so they are not pinned. The main office sits at Praça da República 23 in Sintra Vila, the station office at Avenida Dr. Miguel Bombarda, and a third at Cabo da Roca itself. The Cabo da Roca office sells a calligraphed Certificate of Presence for $12.69 (€11), or a Braille version at $5.19 (€4.50), and opens 09:00-19:30 daily from May to September and 09:00-18:30 the rest of the year.

The town office is covered with the rest of the old town on the Sintra village page.

Bus Stops: Names, Not a Drawn Route

Carris Metropolitana names the 1253 stops on its line page, from Avenida Dr. Miguel Bombarda through Colares, Azóia and Cabo da Roca, but this map does not pin a route line, and the individual stop marks are not drawn. The 434 has no published stop list or timetable on scotturb.com, so pinning its stops would mean guessing. Parques de Sintra's how-to-get-there page names the routes each bus serves, which is what the bus table above uses.

Restaurants and Pastry Shops: No Cited Coordinates

The site pins no venue it cannot cite, and neither of the two Michelin-starred restaurants in Sintra has coordinates in the sources. The MICHELIN Guide Portugal lists Midori, a Japanese restaurant open since 1992, and LAB by Sergi Arola at Penha Longa. Casa Piriquita and Queijadas da Sapa have full street addresses but no published GPS points.

Food is covered without pins on our where to eat page.

São Pedro de Penaferrim: A Mismatched Point

Wikidata's point for the former parish of São Pedro de Penaferrim does not match the village square, so it is left off rather than misplaced. The village matters on the ground, because the Santa Maria Trail to the castle starts nearby and line 1253 stops there. Until a sourced point exists, this Sintra map stays silent rather than wrong.

The Trails: Start Points, Not GPS Tracks

The three marked trails are not drawn as lines on this map. Parques de Sintra publishes start points, distances and times, but not a GPS track, and drawing a route would mean inventing the geometry. The trail table above carries the official distances.

For route descriptions that do exist, see our hiking guide.

Blue Flag Beaches and Missing Lifeguard Dates

Five Sintra beaches hold the Blue Flag for the 2026 bathing season, per the City of Sintra's own announcement: Adraga, Grande, Maçãs, Magoito and São Julião. Praia da Ursa is not among them, and it has no lifeguard, with rescue access reported as difficult. That fits its position on the map, below an unofficial trail from near Cabo da Roca that hiking sites report as roughly 2.5 to 2.6 km round trip with a steep loose final stretch of about 400 m.

One honest limit: no official municipal or maritime-authority page checked states specific lifeguard-season start and end dates per individual Sintra beach, and none itemises per-beach hazard warnings. Seasonal rules also touch the sights. Regaleira's hours stretch from 10:00-17:30 in the winter months to 10:00-20:00 from May to September, closing 25 December and 1 January, so the same pin offers far more evening time in summer. Details on our best time to visit page.

The Summer Tram and the Storm Factor

The Elétrico de Sintra connects the town layer to the coast in season, running nearly 11 km from Estefania to Praia das Maçãs in about 45 minutes between the Serra and the Atlantic. When it runs, it links pins that otherwise depend on the 1253 corridor.

The hill itself has a storm record worth knowing when you plan. Cruz Alta's cross has been rebuilt more than once after storm and lightning damage, most recently replaced in 2008 with a 3.5 m limestone cross carved from a single block. The ridge is exposed, and the monument trails climb it. If weather turns, the National Palace in the town layer is the indoor fallback on the map.