2nd day in Lisbon, we did a day trip to Sintra to see the colorful Pena Palace. Like many popular attractions nowadays, to better manage the crowds, the palace implemented timed entry. I booked the entrance at 10:30 AM instead of right when it opens just in case of delay of the train or bus. This only applies to the interior of the palace, you can visit the outside at any time with a valid ticket. We took the 8:11 AM train to Sintra, arrived at 8:51 AM, and then caught the 434 bus to Pena Palace. They only sell the unlimited day ticket when purchasing from the bus driver (credit card is accepted). The bus was fully packed even at 9 AM! The bus driver was so friendly, he asked other passengers to give up their seats to our two little kids!
Once we arrived, the staff scanned our tickets and we walked to the line for the shuttle bus up to the entrance of the palace (we hiked up 9 years ago lol).
The palace was filled with tourists at that time, although not crowded (yet), I remembered back then, we were the first handful of tourists there. We took photos around the beautiful and colorful exterior of the palace.
At around 10:15 AM, we queued up and luckily the 10:30 AM line was in the shade for most of the time; it was already hot! The entrance seemed to be constantly with people entering despite the timed entry of every 30 minutes. I guess it takes that long for hundreds of people (whatever the limit is per slot) to enter. Once we entered, it was still a long, slow-moving line through room by room; the line snaked to the 2nd floor as we can see from the courtyard urg!
There were so many tourists but at least not super crowded as in pushing each other to move but it was not as a pleasant experience as 9 years ago! The rooms of the palace looked more like a medieval castle than a lavishly decorated palace. The rooms looked exactly like 9 years ago!
The most colorful decorated rooms were the queen and king’s rooms.
I totally forgot, this is where my favorite “pink room” is in; I thought it was in Queluz Palace.
My daughter liked it too!
A massive wood-craved art:
The gigantic kitchen was under restoration, so only a small part could be seen.
We finally got out through the crowds and to the back of the palace. From here, you can see the Sintra down underneath.
The resident peacock which my kids were super excited to meet.
Thanks to Lightroom’s new AI people removal, it did a pretty good job removing “obstructions”!
After the palace visit, we waited for the shuttle bus to get down and then the 434 bus back to town. We stopped at the town center instead of Sintra train station; it was closer to Bengal Tandoori where I made reservation for lunch at 12:30 PM with 30% off via TheFork. It’s an Indian chain restaurant in Lisbon and Sintra. We ordered curries, salad, and pizza…yes they have pages of Italian food (pizza, pasta, lasagna, etc.) in their menu as well! The curries tasted okay but their chicken was too dry!
The best was the garlic naan bread, it was fresh and tasty.
The pizza wasn’t bad either.
As well as the lasagna.
The lunch was $108.51 with 30% off, not bad for a touristy town. After lunch, we walked to Quinta da Regaleira as the 435 bus was every 30 minutes, we were not sure when the next bus will come; it was faster to walk than to wait. The walk was longer than expected because the entrance of the palace was further away up on the hill!!! Once we got there, we purchased the tickets for the next available time slot – 2:30 PM (the 2 PM was sold out so we waited half an hour). Also, with the Lisboa Card, we get 10% off. Once we got in, the crowds spread throughout the huge garden grounds of the palace so it didn’t feel crowded like Pena Palace. One of the many beautiful spiral towers:
We followed signs to the Initiation Wells first then made our way back to the palace (where the exit is located). There was a line to enter the wells, although not too long. To manage the crowd, they made the visit one-way direction so we had to walk all the way down to the bottom of the well to exit. A staff constantly screamed “keep moving” so it was hard to stop for photos.
We managed to have a few photos with Jason’s phone, he purposely walked slower and let people pass so he could be on the other side of the well.
The further down we went, it got darker and wetter so I had to carry my son the rest of the way.
Instead of an exit, it was the start of underground tunnels. On our previous visit, we walked up instead of through the tunnels so it was our first time inside the tunnels. We were lost with no signage LOL, we ended up to a waterfall so we walked back and tried another route. The tunnels were impressive!
We got out on our 2nd route phew! The kids wanted to go up the spiral towers so I went up with them…to the 2nd floor only, it was too narrow and steep to get to the top for them.
Next, we followed the signs to the palace.
The interior decors are mostly incredible wood carvings.
We didn’t go up to the roof, you can see pictures from our previous visit: https://missvacation.net/2016/10/14/sintra-the-fairy-tale-town/
The kids were tired by then so we waited for the 435 bus and it took forever for the next bus to arrive. It was a long way detour back to the train station….a 45 minutes ride! The kids fell asleep on the bus. We got on the next train back to Lisbon and took a break in the apartment.
For dinner, I made a reservation at Nono Hong Kong at 6 PM. This was the only Cantonese restaurant in the heart of Lisbon and had good reviews to give a break from Portuguese seafood (the elderly and my son need white rice). It ended up disappointing, the food wasn’t authentic and too salty in general!!! The fried beef noodle lacked the “wok” taste.
The portion was small for its price!
We missed stir-fried veggy so we ordered the cabbage, it was okay.
And another garlic stir-fried veggy:
The duck was not the traditional marinated duck taste at all.
Their bubble tea was bad too, the “bubble” was too soft and not chewy at all! The dinner cost $157.86, totally not worth it!
Overall, Sintra is definitely worth a day trip to see its incredible palaces and architecture. With kids and elderly, we only managed to visit two of the sights…..back then we spent a night and visited 5! I totally recommend staying overnight in Sintra to get a head start and enough time to visit the other palaces there. Compared to 9 years ago, Portugal has since attracted a lot more tourists and has soared in popularity. I would like to visit during the shoulder seasons but with two kids (my daughter is going to kindergarten this fall), I will be limited to school vacation days 🙁
