Castle of the Moors Tickets

Last ticket and last admission at 17:30. Hours are often extended until 20:00 during Summer months, but make sure to verify in advance if you’re planning to go later.

The best time of day to visit the castle is right at opening time. The morning has the coolest weather in Sintra all year round, and, unlike other landmarks in Sintra, The Moorish Castle does not have many trees and shelters that will shade you from the sun during your trip.

From Lisbon, the easiest way to reach Sintra is by train on the Sintra Line (CP), which departs every 30 minutes until 23:00 from Rossio, Oriente, or Entrecampos stations. The journey takes around 40 minutes.

Once at Sintra Station, you have a few options to reach The Moorish Castle:

The Moorish Castle is great for visitors with mobility issues for a few reasons:

• A few handicap parking spaces are located near the entrance.
• It is also the only one of Sintra’s major landmarks that allows dogs.
• Manual wheelchairs are available at the ticket office. Visitors can rent one for free for 90 minutes of use.
• Almost all areas of the castle are wheelchair-accessible. Most of the stone stairways are fitted with ramps or wheelchair lifts, and the castle walls are reachable by elevator. Maps at the ticketing office suggest a specific route to take through the castle to fully utilize the amenities.
• Lots of the surfaces on the grounds are steep or uneven, but the ticketing desk loans out traction equipment that wheelchair users can employ to navigate the difficult terrain.
• The gift shop, cafe, and restrooms at The Moorish Castle are also wheelchair-accessible.

• Stay on marked paths and ramparts – the parts of the castle that have not been reinforced are fragile.
• Keep noise down at viewpoints – don’t disturb the castle’s serenity.
• Respect the ruins – don’t touch or sit on fragile walls.
• Be patient at bottlenecks – the walls only fit one-way traffic in spots; wait your turn instead of forcing past.
• Secure your belongings – the walls can get seriously windy; secure hats, scarves, and even phones so they don’t fly off the ramparts.

Even more than anywhere else in The Moorish Castle, strolling along the outer walls feels like walking through a medieval fantasy tale. The walls are rough and uneven, with ferns and ivy spilling through cracks.

Peer inside these round pits in the ground and you’ll see smooth, cylindrical hollows carved into the rock and furnished with ancient-looking stone containers and tools. The silos are cool and shadowy, reminders of how supplies were once tucked safely below the earth.

BY-SA 4.0 InternationalGualdimG/Wikimedia Commons

You’ll step from the wind and brightness of the ramparts and through a sturdy stone archway into a hushed, sheltered interior at this small church. Neither the exterior nor interior is lavish, but it feels like a sanctuary in the center of the busy castle; the air is cool, dim, and still, with a few panels explaining the church’s history.

Even more so than the adjacent Church, the air in the Tomb & Christian Necropolis feels thick and humid. The main reason is that the inside area is full of soil and greenery that add more moisture to the surroundings.

The graves and accompanying markers are simple—no towering crosses or ornate tombs, just faint outlines in the earth and the occasional small stone. They add a solemn layer to the visit, a reminder that the site once became not just a refuge, but a final resting place.

sepavone/Depositphotos

This square in the center of the castle is a welcome open space after all the narrow stairways and passages. The floor is rough, gravelly, and open to the sky, and often filled with other visitors taking a break. The square was where people once gathered for safety during attacks on the areas around the castle, and now it’s the castle’s natural pause point.

The Door of Betrayal was built into the least-used part of the castle ramparts as a last resort escape hatch to the outside. It’s an unassuming black wooden gate that a lot of visitors miss, but knowing the heavy history behind it makes it an exciting landmark.

andreslebedev/Depositphotos

The steps to many of the castle’s towers and highest viewpoints are steep, uneven, and wind-exposed, but reaching the top rewards you with enormous panoramas. Some of the best viewpoints include: