Lisbon + Sintra in 7 Days on a Budget
Seven Days in Lisbon: Four Day Trips and One Ambitious Fifth
A week is enough time for two city days, four regional day trips, Sintra, Cascais, Setubal and Obidos, and still leave room for one more ambitious add-on: Porto, Portugal’s second city, by fast train. Give Lisbon itself its two days first, see the Lisbon city guide for how to spend them, before the day trips start eating your week.
Book these before you go:
- Pena Palace timed entry for day three.
- A Setubal dolphin-watching tour , boats fill before the walk-up crowd realises.
- Central accommodation in Chiado or Principe Real , booked well ahead for a full week.
| Day | Focus | Rough cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baixa and Alfama | 25-30 EUR |
| 2 | Belem and the castle | 60-65 EUR |
| 3 | Sintra | 44-50 EUR |
| 4 | Cascais and Estoril | 30-35 EUR |
| 5 | Setubal and the Arrabida coast | 64-70 EUR |
| 6 | Obidos | 30-37 EUR |
| 7 | Porto, the ambitious add-on | 65-90 EUR |
| Trip | Distance from Lisbon | Travel time | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sintra (from Rossio) | ~28 km | ~40 min by train | 2.45 EUR one-way |
| Cascais (from Cais do Sodre) | ~30 km | ~40 min by train | 2.25-2.45 EUR one-way |
| Setubal (from Roma-Areeiro) | ~45 km | under 1hr by train | ~4.50 EUR one-way |
| Obidos (from Lisboa Oriente) | ~85 km | 2-2.5hrs by train | ~8-10 EUR one-way |
| Porto (from Santa Apolonia/Oriente) | ~310 km | ~2h45-3hrs by train | ~25-35 EUR one-way |
Getting in and getting around. Forget Aerobus, the old airport shuttle; it stopped running in 2022. The Metro Red Line covers arrivals to the centre in twenty five to thirty minutes, changing once at Alameda or Sao Sebastiao. Buy a 0.50 EUR Navegante card and load it with Zapping pay-as-you-go credit rather than single tickets; it drops each ride to about 1.70 EUR and will pay for itself many times over across a week of day trips.
Where to stay for a week. Chiado or Principe Real are the steadiest bases: central, walkable, close to a metro stop for the mornings you’re catching an early train to Sintra or Obidos. Budget guesthouse rooms run roughly 30 to 50 EUR a night, mid-range hotels 80 to 130 EUR.
Day 1: Baixa and Alfama. Walk Baixa’s post-earthquake grid down to Praca do Comercio, then head up into Alfama in proper flat, grippy shoes, since the cobbled calcada is slicker than it photographs. Ride Tram 12E rather than the famous 28 for the same hillside scenery without the 28’s reputation as the city’s most reliable pickpocket route. Dinner at a real tasca, 8 to 14 EUR a plate, and check the couvert before you eat it; it’s a charge, not a welcome gift.
Budget: roughly 25-30 EUR.
Day 2: Belem and the castle. Jeronimos Monastery is 18 EUR for monastery-only entry (older write-ups still quote around 10 EUR, that price is stale); a combined ticket with Belem Tower runs 33 EUR, no real saving over two single tickets. Current hours are on museusemonumentos.pt . Eat the original pastel de nata warm at Pasteis de Belem, queue included, at least once on the trip; Manteigaria back in Chiado is the more convenient, arguably more consistent version for the rest of the week. Fit in Sao Jorge Castle too, about 15 EUR, before the midday tour groups arrive.
Budget: roughly 60-65 EUR.
Day 3: Sintra. The train from Rossio takes about forty minutes each way, 2.45 EUR each way. Book Pena Palace’s timed entry online at parquesdesintra.pt well before you travel; peak season, roughly Easter through October, punishes anyone who shows up without one with hours in line or a sold-out palace. Palace and park together run about 20 EUR, park-only about 14, and Bus 434 links the station to the gate for 7.10 EUR round-trip, or a 13.50 EUR day pass for repeat use. This is the single most important booking in the entire week.
Budget: roughly 44-50 EUR.
Day 4: Cascais and Estoril. A separate line from Cais do Sodre station, not the Sintra route from Rossio, gets you there in about forty minutes, roughly 2.25-2.45 EUR each way on the same card. Cascais keeps a working harbour and walkable old town; Estoril, one stop earlier, adds a casino and a longer seafront promenade. Seafood here usually runs cheaper than the same plate in central Lisbon.
Budget: roughly 30-35 EUR.
Is a week of day trips out of Lisbon too much?
Not if the ratio holds. Two full city days against five regional trips still leaves you knowing Lisbon itself properly, rather than treating it as a hotel base for a Portugal tour. If day six or seven feels like a slog by the time you plan it, that’s the signal to cut it, not push through.
Day 5: Setubal and the Arrabida coast. A Fertagus train from Roma-Areeiro reaches Setubal in under an hour for about 4.50 EUR one way. Dolphin-watching tours on the Sado estuary cost around 40 EUR for two and a half hours, with morning and afternoon slots worth booking ahead. Skip the boat and the Arrabida hills still offer some of the country’s better wine, from the Azeitao producers just outside town, plus a cheap ferry across to Troia for a quieter beach than anything near Cascais.
Budget: roughly 64-70 EUR.
Day 6: Obidos. Obidos runs from Lisboa Oriente, not Rossio, on a limited schedule of about four trains a day, two to two and a half hours each way for roughly 8 to 10 EUR one way; check the return times before you commit to the trip. It’s a genuinely walkable medieval walled town with bookshops and its own chocolate-cup version of ginjinha, but it’s also the most travel time for the least town of anything on this list, so it’s the easiest day to cut if you’re tired by day six.
Budget: roughly 30-37 EUR.
Day 7: Porto, the ambitious add-on. A fast Alfa Pendular or Intercidades train from Santa Apolonia or Oriente station covers the roughly 310km to Porto in about two hours forty five minutes to three hours each way, one-way fares typically 25 to 35 EUR depending how far ahead you book through cp.pt , Portugal’s national rail operator. That’s five to six hours of travel alone for a single day, so be honest with yourself: this works best as a long day for a first look at Porto’s riverside Ribeira district and a glass of port at one of the cellars across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia, not as a real exploration of the city. If a week already feels full after six days of day trips, skip this one and spend day seven back in Lisbon instead, one more pass through Time Out Market or a slow morning at a miradouro beats a rushed six-hour round trip.
Budget: train ~50-70 EUR return, food and a port tasting ~15-20 EUR. Total roughly 65-90 EUR.
Is Porto really doable as a single day trip from Lisbon?
Technically yes, sensibly no. The train alone eats five to six hours round trip, leaving four or five hours in Porto itself, enough for the Ribeira waterfront and one port wine cellar tour, not much else. Most travellers who actually want to see Porto are better served giving it its own overnight rather than bolting it onto a Lisbon week.
Before you go. April through June and September through October give the best weather-to-crowd ratio; July and August push past 30C with the year’s worst lines at Sintra and Belem. Ignore the flat-rate taxi touts at the airport, the metro or a rideshare from the curb both beat them on price.
Seven-day total: figure roughly 320-375 EUR per person for transit, sights and food across the week, not counting accommodation. Book the Pena Palace ticket first; every other day on this list, Porto included, can be swapped or dropped without wrecking the trip.