The Moorish Castle along its walls

What it is and why it matters

The Moorish Castle is a 10th-century fortification, from when the peninsula was under Muslim rule. Its walls follow the ridge of a summit in the Sintra mountains, built with granite blocks that blend into the boulders and crags. From below, in the town, it looks like a crenellated line cut against the sky; from above, the view takes in Sintra, Pena Palace on the next summit and the Atlantic.

It is not a castle with rooms: it is an enclosure of walls, towers and archaeological remains that you walk round in the open air, going up and down stone stairs along the wall-walk.

What you see

Parques de Sintra marks twelve points of interest. The main ones:

• The wall-walk and the towers: the walk along the top of the wall, with uneven steps and very steep stretches, as far as the Royal Tower.
• The keep and the parade ground, in the core of the enclosure.
• The cistern, which stored the fortress's water.
• The silos and the Islamic settlement, remains of life inside the enclosure.
• The church of São Pedro de Canaferrim and the medieval Christian necropolis, from the period after the conquest.
• The Traitor's Gate and the second ring of walls.

Opening hours

Open every day from 9:30 to 18:00. The last ticket sale and last entry are at 17:30. The ticket office closes from 12:00 to 13:00, but there are automatic machines. Parques de Sintra publishes occasional closures on its website: on 11 November 2026, for example, all its monuments were closed.

Tickets and prices

• Adults aged 18 to 64: €12.
• Young people aged 6 to 17 and over-65s: €10.
• Family of two adults and two young people: €33.
• Children under 6: free.

You can buy on the Parques de Sintra website or at the ticket office.

How long

An hour and a half to go round the walls without rushing. If you link it with Pena, which is about 30 minutes' walk away on a waymarked path, spend the day in the mountains.

How to get there

You cannot get there by private car. From Lisbon, take the Sintra line train (Rossio, Oriente or Entrecampos) and, at the station, Scotturb bus 434, which goes up to the castle and Pena. If you go by car, leave it in the historic centre or in a peripheral car park and go up on foot or by bus.

On foot there are two official trails: the Santa Maria one, of 1,770 m and about an hour, which leaves from the Info Parques de Sintra office in São Pedro de Sintra, and the Seteais one, of 2,410 m, which leaves from Seteais palace. From the centre, the Vila Sassetti trail climbs through a forest to the entrance.

Accessibility, with children and with a dog

The walls are not accessible by wheelchair or pushchair: everything is stairs and slopes. If you are afraid of heights, the wall-walk is tough, because in some stretches it runs along the edge of the rock.

With children over six or seven it is one of the visits they enjoy most in Sintra: it is a real castle, for climbing and exploring. Hold their hands on the stairs. Dogs are welcome, according to Parques de Sintra.