6 Days in Lisbon and Beyond

There is no train that runs directly between Sintra and Cascais, and this trips up more people planning a Lisbon trip than anything else on this list. Rossio station only serves the Sintra line. Cascais and Estoril trains leave from Cais do Sodre, a completely different station on the other side of the city. This itinerary gives each escape its own day rather than forcing a connection that doesn’t exist. For the city on its own terms, see our Lisbon guide ; for the shorter version of this same day-trip spine, our 4-day itinerary covers Sintra and Cascais alone.

Book these before you go:

Day Focus
1 Arrival, Baixa, Chiado, Alfama
2 Sintra
3 Cascais
4 Setubal and Arrabida
5 Obidos
6 Porto verdict, slow finish, departure

Day 1: Arrival and Baixa

Land at Humberto Delgado Airport, check into a centrally located hotel in Baixa or Chiado so you can walk to most of what follows, and use the afternoon to shake off jet lag with a loop through Rossio Square, Praca do Comercio, and the Rua Augusta Arch, which you can climb for a rooftop view over the plaza and river. The Metro Red Line into Baixa takes 25-30 minutes from the airport, single fare 1.90 EUR or 1.72 EUR loaded onto a Navegante card’s Zapping balance; Aerobus stopped running in 2022, so don’t plan around it.

If you ride Tram 28 at any point this trip, do it early morning or after 6pm rather than midday. It runs the most tourist-heavy loop in the city, through Alfama, Graca and Baixa, and it’s Lisbon’s most reliably worked pickpocket route. Keep your phone in a front pocket, not a back one, and skip it entirely if a car pulls up already packed, there will be another along shortly.

Is Belem worth fitting into this itinerary? Not really, not on a trip built around six days of day trips. Both monuments now run timed entry and sit a tram ride outside the centre; that’s the better part of a morning you’d otherwise spend on Sintra prep or simply resting between long days out. Our full Lisbon guide treats it properly for a city-focused trip.

Day 2: Sintra

Take the train from Rossio, it’s the direct, no-nonsense route, departures run frequently through the morning, about 40 minutes, 2.45 EUR one way. Pena Palace requires online, timed-entry tickets through the official Sintra parks site bought at least a week ahead, full palace and park access runs 20 EUR, park-only 14 EUR, and the on-site ticket office sells out during peak season, don’t plan on buying at the gate. Bus 434 covers the station-to-gate stretch, 4.10 EUR one way, 7.10 EUR round trip, or an unlimited day pass at 13.50 EUR, roughly double the stale ~6.90 EUR figure still circulating in older guides. Quinta da Regaleira and the Moorish Castle ramparts round out a full morning; you won’t comfortably fit all three plus lunch in one day without rushing, so pick two of the three Sintra sites and accept that.

Day 3: Cascais

Catch a separate train from Cais do Sodre, about 35-40 minutes and roughly 2.25-2.45 EUR each way. Cascais rewards an unhurried beachfront walk more than a checklist of sights, a genuinely different pace from Sintra’s crowded palace paths. Return to Lisbon for dinner in Chiado, a neighbourhood that does old-world cafe culture, A Brasileira among the historic ones, better than almost anywhere else in the city.

Day 4: Setubal and Arrabida

Best by car or an organized tour rather than public transport, roughly an hour south along the Arrabida coast. A dolphin-watching trip on the Sado estuary runs around 40 EUR for 2.5 hours, tracking a resident bottlenose population of roughly thirty animals, one of only three such resident colonies left in Europe, sighting rates above 95%. Combine it with the Arrabida cliffs and clean water, and eat choco frito, fried cuttlefish, in Setubal town itself, the local specialty.

Day 5: Obidos

Skip the train, it’s a slow regional service over two hours, running a handful of times a day, dropping you a 20-minute walk from town. The Rodotejo express bus from Campo Grande station is the right call, about an hour, roughly 9.45 EUR each way, no return fare sold so buy two singles. Obidos is a walled medieval hill town, small enough to see properly in a morning.

Day 6: A Porto Verdict, Then Home

Is Porto worth adding to this trip? Not as a day trip. It’s roughly three hours each way by train, which turns “one more city” into six hours on a train and a rushed few hours on the ground. If Porto is genuinely on your list, it deserves its own separate 2-3 days, not a bolt-on to a Lisbon-based week.

Use this last day for whatever got missed, a last coffee in a favourite square, a final round of shopping in Chiado, or retracing a walk you liked earlier in the trip. Head to the airport with buffer for metro delays during peak commute hours, the Red Line gets genuinely packed on weekday mornings.

A genuinely useful buy for a trip this size is the Lisboa Card, 31, 51 or 62 EUR for 24, 48 or 72 hours, bundling public transport including the airport metro connection and the Sintra and Cascais trains, plus free entry to more than 50 museums and monuments. Run the math against what you actually plan to see; for a schedule this heavy on paid sights it usually pays for itself before day three.