Choose Your Monserrate Palace Ticket
The roof is being restored until the first quarter of 2027, so the palace stands under scaffolding and a temporary cover. The rooms and the park stay open throughout.
Lisboa Card + Monserrate Palace
Ride the Lisbon-to-Sintra train the card already covers, then walk into the palace with the ticket bundled with it. The same card covers city transport, Tram 28, and the Santa Justa lift. It opens 51 museums and monuments for 24, 48 or 72 hours.
Monserrate Palace: Entry Ticket
One ticket covers the palace and every path in the park, from the fern valleys and the waterfall at the bottom up to the gallery of rose marble and carved plaster at the top.
Monserrate Palace + Sintra hop-on hop-off bus
This is the version that solves the run out to the gate. The bus ticket lasts 24 hours across lines 434 and 435, so the same pass carries you on to Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle.
Monserrate Palace + Quinta da Regaleira
Regaleira’s wells and tunnels and Monserrate’s gardens sit two stops apart on the same road out of Sintra. Regaleira’s digital audio guide is included.
Highlights
Tickets & Prices
One ticket covers the palace and the park, and every other option pairs that same ticket with something else.
- Monserrate Palace entry ticket. Entry covers the palace and every path in the estate, and you redeem it from your phone at the gate.
- Guided tour of the palace. The tour runs 90 minutes in English or Portuguese, with no more than 20 people in the group. Arrive 15 minutes before it starts.
- Lisboa Card + Monserrate Palace. The card covers the Sintra train and unlimited transport around Lisbon, and your palace entry comes bundled with it.
- Monserrate Palace + the 24-hour Sintra bus. This one puts both Sintra bus lines at your disposal for a day and includes your entry.
- Monserrate Palace + Quinta da Regaleira. The two estates sit on the same road, and Regaleira’s digital audio guide is included.
- Pena Palace + Monserrate Palace. The two palaces sit on opposite sides of Sintra and on different bus lines, so plan a full day rather than a morning.
Book online and you show a voucher at the entrance. All of these tickets are nonrefundable, and none can be moved to another date.
Pick a day you are sure of. Buying direct from Parques de Sintra keeps the option of rescheduling within the year.
Turning up without a ticket also works better here than at Pena, because Monserrate admits you at any hour it is open and the gate moves quickly. The ticket office shuts for an hour at midday, though the machines beside it keep selling.
For a first visit arriving by train, take the entry ticket bundled with the 24-hour bus. The run out of town is the part of a Monserrate day that goes wrong. It goes wrong at the stop, once there is nothing left to do about it.
Sintra rewards a second and a third monument. For the palace most people come for, see Pena Palace tickets, or Lisboa Card + Pena Palace to pair it with the train out. Quinta da Regaleira is the closest of them to Monserrate, Castle of the Moors is up the other Sintra bus line, and every Sintra ticket we cover is listed under Sintra.
Plan Your Visit
| Area | Opening Hours | Last Ticket | Last Admission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Park | 9:00–19:00 | 18:00 | 18:00 |
| Palace | 9:30–18:00 | 17:00 | 17:30 |
- Open every day of the week
- Ticket office closed 12:00 to 13:00, with automatic machines running through the break
- This is a good last stop of the day. Arrive around 16:30 and there is still time for the gardens and the house before the gates close, with the park staying open a full hour after the palace.
- Bus 435 runs from Sintra station to Monserrate in about 16 minutes, by way of Sintra Vila, Quinta da Regaleira and the Palácio de Seteais. The service starts at 09:00, finishes at 18:30, and leaves every ten minutes. The last bus out of Monserrate goes at 18:52.
- A single circuit ticket costs €5.50. A 24-hour pass across lines 434 and 435 is €13.50, or €7.50 for children aged 4 to 11, and under-fours travel free.
- The buses are small. Once one fills at Sintra station the wait for the next can stretch past an hour. The taxi and tuk-tuk drivers working that rank have been known to quote €60 to €70 for the short hop.
- Boarding at Quinta da Regaleira instead skips the worst of the station crush. The ordinary yellow Carris Metropolitana service covers the same road for less than the tourist lines, and its stop is opposite Regaleira.
- Walking from the centre of Sintra takes roughly an hour through the woods.
- If you are driving, Monserrate is about 3.5 miles from Sintra station and there is free parking at the gate. Follow the map rather than the road signs, which thin out on the approach, and be ready for narrow two-way lanes if your satnav picks its own route.
Monserrate Palace, 2710-405 Sintra. The estate sits about 3.5 miles out from Sintra station, on the road past Quinta da Regaleira and the Palácio de Seteais.
Monserrate Palace
R. Barbosa du Bocage 136, 2710-405 Sintra, Portugal · Google Maps
- Wheelchair accessible, with ramps on site.
- Almost all of the palace visit happens on the ground floor, with the toilets on another level.
- The signposted short route from the entrance rises and falls, and a flatter path runs left from the gate.
- The paths down to the lake are steep and uneven, so bring shoes you can walk a slope in.
- Entry to the palace and to the whole park.
- Roof restoration continues until the first quarter of 2027, with scaffolding and a temporary cover on the building. The rooms and the grounds stay open throughout.
- Guide dogs are welcome inside.
- Photography is fine in the palace, without flash or a tripod.
- The Sintra bus ticket covers the rides only, so monument entry is bought separately.
What to See & Do
Monserrate reads back to front. The gate sits high on the hill and the gardens fall away below it. You walk down through the park first and meet the palace on the way back up.
That is the right way round. By the time the house appears above the lawn you have already caught sight of it through the trees.
The Fern Valley and the native woods
tupungato/DepositphotosThe path leaves the entrance into the Floresta Nativa, the belt of native oak the estate was carved out of, and drops into the Fern Valley below it.
Francis Cook’s gardeners planted by origin rather than by colour, so the geography shifts as you walk. Oak gives way to tree ferns, then to species from a good deal further off than Portugal.
The walking is real. Reckon on an hour down here to see most of it.
The Beckford waterfall and the chapel ruins
cristianoaless/DepositphotosThe Cascata de Beckford, named for the writer who took the tenancy in 1794, is an artificial waterfall built into the slope. It feeds a chain of pools and ornamental lakes on the way down.
Further along stand the Gothic ruins of the old Monserrate chapel, with Australian rubber trees growing up through the stonework.
In high summer the shade down here is deep and the agapanthus is still out.
The Mexican Garden and the Rose Garden
diegograndi/DepositphotosPlanting by origin means the Jardim de México runs to desert species, dry-country planting set against the green everywhere else.
The Roseiral is the opposite argument. Come in March and parts of the garden are still bare, so a spring visit is a shorter walk than a summer one.
There is a café on the estate, and toilets. The tapas and pastéis are better than a palace café has any need to be.
The lawn and the walk up to the palace
True Pixel Art/DepositphotosFrom the lowest point the ground climbs back towards the house across open lawn, and the house comes up in front of you as you climb.
Pink tones run across the roof, and rounded limestone walls carry Gothic windows set against Islamic detail. Scaffolding covers all of it at the moment, so the facade stays under wraps until the roof work finishes. What you get in exchange is a palace emptier than it has been in years.
The gallery, the Main Hall and the spiral stair
diegograndi/DepositphotosYou come in through the Átrio Principal, an octagonal hall under a dome, ringed with Gothic arches and marble columns.
Then the gallery. Rose marble columns and carved plaster run the length of the building, with a round room closing each end and a staircase spiralling towards the roof from the middle. It is the room the palace is built around, and it reads less like Portugal than like somewhere several thousand miles east.
The palace also holds the Main Hall, the Sacred Art Room, the Dining Room, the Sitting Room and the Billiards Room. None of the original furniture survives, which keeps the eye on the walls and ceilings and makes the inside of the palace a shorter visit than the park.
The Music Room and the Library
LuisVieira77/DepositphotosThe Music Room occupies the north tower at the far end of the gallery. High ceilings and arched windows bring in light from the garden.
The Library sits along the same run. The interpretation panels through these rooms are brief and English only, which is the honest case for taking a guide.
Did You Know That? 6 Interesting Facts
- A hermitage to Our Lady of Monserrate stood on this hill from 1540, built on the orders of Friar Gaspar Preto.
- The 1755 Lisbon earthquake damaged the site.
- Gerard de Visme, a British merchant, rented the estate in 1789 and put up a Neogothic castle on it.
- William Beckford became tenant in 1794 and left in 1799. Byron wrote the place into Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
- Francis Cook bought the estate in 1863 and became 1st Viscount of Monserrate. The palace standing today is the one he commissioned, designed by James Knowles Jr.
- The Portuguese state bought the estate in 1949, UNESCO listed it with the rest of Sintra’s cultural landscape in 1995, and the palace reopened in 2010.
Insider Tips
- Walk the gardens before the palace. The path from the gate runs downhill and the house looks best from below, and the slopes to the lake want proper shoes.
- Board the 435 at Quinta da Regaleira rather than Sintra station if your day allows it. The station stop is where the buses fill.
- Check the last bus before you settle on the lawn. The final 435 leaves Monserrate at 18:52, and that stop stands in full sun.
- Arrive around 16:30 if you are fitting Monserrate in after another monument. Two hours is enough for the whole estate, and the park outlasts the palace by an hour.
- Take the guided tour if you want the story rather than the building. The panels in the rooms are brief and in English only.
FAQs
Do you need tickets for Monserrate?
Yes, for the park as well as the palace. Entry runs open through the day and the gate moves quickly, so buying ahead saves you the ticket office rather than a wait.
Is Monserrate Palace free?
No, and it is not one of the Lisboa Card‘s 51 free attractions either, so the entry ticket is always a separate purchase. Concession rates and the family ticket are listed under Tickets and Prices above.
How much time do you need at Monserrate Palace?
Two hours, weighted towards the park. Reckon on an hour in the gardens and half an hour inside, with the rest of it spent walking between the two.
Is Monserrate Palace worth visiting?
Yes, with one caveat worth knowing before you pay. The roof restoration runs until early 2027 and the facade is completely covered, so the outside of the building is not photographable. The rooms and the park carry the visit, and both are open.
How to get to Monserrate Palace from Sintra
Bus 435 from Sintra station, about 16 minutes and six stops. The ordinary yellow Carris service runs the same road for less, from the stop opposite Quinta da Regaleira.
Does Lisboa Card include Sintra or Monserrate?
The card covers the train from Lisbon to Sintra and unlimited transport in the city. Entry to Monserrate is a separate ticket, which is what the Lisboa Card + Monserrate bundle pairs it with.
Monserrate Palace vs Pena Palace: which should you choose?
Pena is the bolder building. Monserrate is the better afternoon, quieter and slower. Pena wins on architecture, and if you have room for one more monument after Pena, make it this one.
Can you do both Monserrate Palace and Quinta da Regaleira in one day?
Easily. They sit on the same road out of Sintra, two stops apart on bus 435, and the two estates are sold together as one ticket.