Day trips from Lisbon with the Lisboa Card

Day trips from Lisbon: what the card covers

There are two kinds of day trip on the card. For Sintra, Cascais and Setúbal it pays for the train. For the four big monuments further out, it pays for the entry, and you buy the coach or train ticket yourself.

Sintra and Cascais have pages of their own, and the rest are below.

Mafra Palace

At Mafra Palace, begun for King João V in 1717, about 30,000 books fill a single library room of 1,000 square metres. At least two colonies of bats live in it and keep the insects off the books.

Besides the library, the visit takes in the 18th-century infirmary and the Hall of Diana. UNESCO listed the palace in 2019.

The basilica is closed for works, with no reopening date yet. Since November 2025 the same building also holds the National Music Museum, moved here from Lisbon and included in the card too.

From Lisbon, Carris Metropolitana buses 2802 and 2804 leave from Campo Grande, at the metro, and take 35 to 60 minutes to the Mafra Convento stop. The faster 2802 runs only at rush hour. The card covers the metro to Campo Grande but not the bus.

Tomar and the Convent of Christ

Tomar grew up around a fortress of the Knights Templar, and their round church, the Charola, is still at the heart of the Convent of Christ. It was modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and it’s one of the few round churches left from medieval Europe.

Around it the convent grew for centuries. Two Gothic cloisters date from the time of Henry the Navigator, who led the Order of Christ and sent out Portugal’s first voyages of discovery, and five more are Renaissance. The carved Chapter Window is a symbol of those voyages by sea.

Some terraces, a cloister and the gardens are closed for works for now.

Lisbon to Tomar by train

Tomar is the only one of the four with a direct train. CP Regionals leave Lisbon Oriente about every hour and take 1h51 to 1h58; some end at Entroncamento, where you change.

The 6:53 from Oriente gets in at 8:47, and trains back leave Tomar at 17:11, 18:11, 20:11 and 22:06, not all of them daily (timetable from 20 September 2026). The card doesn’t cover this train: a single is €11 on the Regional and €12.10 on the faster InterRegional.

Batalha Monastery

In the Founder’s Chapel at Batalha Monastery, a star-shaped vault lit by an octagonal lantern rises over the shared tomb of King João I and Philippa of Lancaster. Four of their sons, Henry the Navigator among them, lie along the south wall.

The Unfinished Chapels, a second royal pantheon left open to the sky, are reached from outside the main building. The monastery took more than 150 years to build and has been on the UNESCO list since 1983.

Getting there takes some planning, because Batalha has no railway station. Coaches from Sete Rios take about two hours, or you can go on a tour that adds Fátima, Nazaré and Óbidos.

Alcobaça Monastery

In the transept of Alcobaça Monastery lie King Pedro I and Inês de Castro, the woman he loved, whom his father had killed in 1355. Their two tombs are counted among the finest Gothic sculpture in Portugal.

Around them stands one of the largest and best-kept Cistercian monasteries in Europe, founded in 1153 by Afonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king. The 18th-century kitchen is the other surprise, with a huge chimney on eight iron columns and a channel that brought live fish in from the River Alcoa.

Coaches from Sete Rios take about two hours. The nearest railway station, Valado, is on a line that’s usually slower than the bus.

Setúbal on the Fertagus train

In Setúbal the card covers both the trip and the sights. Fertagus trains cross the 25 de Abril Bridge from Roma-Areeiro and reach Setúbal in 57 minutes, included in the card, and so are five sites in town.

They include the Setúbal Museum, in the old Convent of Jesus, the ethnographic Michel Giacometti Labour Museum and the Mourisca tide mill. Go any day but Monday, when the museums close.

The same train stops at Pragal, in Almada, where the Casa da Cerca is included, and at Palmela, where the Museum of Mechanical Music takes 20% off.

North along the river, the card’s CP trains run to Azambuja. On the way are two more included museums: the ceramics museum in Sacavém and the Neo-Realism Museum in Vila Franca de Xira, on the Portuguese art and writing movement of that name.

Is the Lisboa Card worth it for a day trip?

Mafra, Batalha, Alcobaça and Tomar each charge €15 at the door, so one of them alone doesn’t cover a 24-hour card at €31. And since the card’s hours run from first use, the trip itself uses up a day of them.

On a 72-hour card the sums change. With Lisbon sights on the other two days, the monument’s €15 is one more saving, and so is the metro to the coach station or to Oriente.

Day tours from Lisbon

Batalha and Tomar can also be seen on a tour from Lisbon. One goes to Fátima, Batalha, Nazaré and Óbidos in ten hours, and another to the Templar castle of Almourol and the Convent of Christ.

Both include an entry the card already gives you. Évora isn’t on the card at all, and two tours go there for the day.