I did day trips to both Sintra and Cascais in Portugal.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

Today’s blog post is on the final part of my Portugal trip. Back on Black Friday, in 2025, I ended up booking a Portugal trip through EF Ultimate Break. I’ve been blogging about the adventures I had during these seven days, and this is the last day trip.

I added on a Sintra and Cascais day trip to my itinerary because I knew I wanted to get out of Lisbon one of the days. It was a bit pricy, honestly, but I thought that it would be worth the money.

Let’s get into what we did! I feel like there’s a lot of ground to cover, especially considering what happened first.

Pena Palace is worth visiting at least once, but I would recommend going inside.

On my original itinerary we were supposed to spend time in the town of Sintra, but, because there was a big accident on the road, we ended up getting to our destination three hours later than expected. What was originally a forty minute bus ride became a three hour one, so we had to make some sacrifices.

We arrived at Pena Palace around 12:10 PM and the lines to get in were massive. It was also really hot due to the European heatwave, and you have to climb up a steep hill in order to access the palace. My calves were burning going up those steps and I didn’t have problems in either Lisbon or Porto leading up to this.

Once you reach the top of the hill there are two lines. One is to go inside of the palace and will be the massive line. The other is to take pictures on the outside and simply enjoy the architecture.

I spent about an hour with my group just taking pictures. There are two walks along the exterior of the wall, which overlooks the hill, but I got too scared to do them because people were going two at a time when you really shouldn’t be. That’s a tiny ledge and only a little barrier stopping you from falling over.

I stopped at the gift shop on the way down and was deeply disappointed to see no pins available of the palace. Overall though I think Pena is more worth it if you arrive at opening and can go in; there’s really a limited amount you can see without the paid ticket. It’s not worth entirely just to take pictures.

We loaded onto the bus after this and headed to Cascais. I decided in the future, though, I would get a hotel or apartment in Sintra and just write. It seemed like my kind of vibe as we passed by!

Cascais is a bustling oceanside town with a lot to eat and shop.

About twenty minutes away from Sintra is the town of Cascais. I had no idea about this town before I booked the tour, but it’s a bustling area. We stopped at the most Western point of Europe, which is a cliff overlooking the ocean, took photos, then headed into the city. We only had a few hours here, though, but I feel like you could bundle it with Sintra easily.

Unlike Nazare, which I had also visited, Cascais was full of tourists and life. We stopped at a market immediately, where vendors were selling antiques. I bought some jewelry off of a local woman. She was selling necklaces for ten euros each, which was cheaper than what I had paid for a similar necklace in Lisbon.

We then stopped for lunch across from the historic center. I got a garlic and olive oil piri piri chicken dish, which was a lot of food. It was also really cheap (only 11 euros???) considering what I had been paying in Porto and Lisbon for comparable portions and food.

After that we walked along the ocean. If you like to shop then there are a ton of shops throughout the Cascais waterfront area. There are also a lot of places to eat all along the water. We ended up stopping at a bar right on the ocean and getting some drinks. I got my last sangria of the trip—I enjoyed the white sangrias a lot in Portugal, and I don’t even drink.

And that was a wrap! We grabbed some last gelato at Santini’s, which is a shop I also went to in Lisbon. Their gelato is very good—I would recommend stopping by there once if you’re in Portugal. They’re a chain.

It was about thirty minutes to get back into Lisbon, and I took some time to rest before heading to a rooftop dinner. But all in all, it was a good day—even though we missed time in Sintra.

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