Lisbon punishes car ownership. The streets are steep, narrow and cobbled, parking in Alfama or Bairro Alto ranges from difficult to imaginary, and the metro and trams cover the city well. Rent for the days you leave, not the days you stay.
Route one: Sintra and Cabo da Roca
The obvious trip and the one that needs the most planning, because everyone does it.
Sintra sits 30 kilometres northwest, and the palaces — Pena, Quinta da Regaleira, the Moorish Castle — are spread across steep wooded hills. The road up to Pena is narrow, one-way in sections, and by 11am in summer it is a queue.
Two workable approaches. Either leave Lisbon by 8am, park in the village and walk or bus up before the crowd forms, or skip the car entirely and take the train from Rossio, which takes 40 minutes and drops you in the centre of Sintra.
Where the car earns its place is afterwards. From Sintra, drive to Cabo da Roca — the westernmost point of mainland Europe, a cliff 140 metres above the Atlantic with a lighthouse and a great deal of wind. Then south along the coast to Guincho and Cascais. That stretch is the reason to have driven.
Route two: the Atlantic surf coast
North instead. Ericeira, roughly 50 minutes from Lisbon, is a working fishing town and a World Surfing Reserve, with a string of beaches along the N247 above it. Continue to Peniche and Baleal, and the day becomes a coastal drive with stops wherever the water looks good.
This one is impossible without a car — the beaches are spread across 60 kilometres with minimal public transport — which makes it the best justification for the rental.
Route three: the Alentejo
Southeast into the cork oak country. Évora is the anchor, about 90 minutes on the A6, with a Roman temple and a chapel lined in human bones. Beyond it are Monsaraz on its hilltop above the Alqueva reservoir, and Estremoz and Vila Viçosa in the marble towns.
This is the empty Portugal — wheat, cork, long straight roads, almost no traffic. It rewards two days more than one, and accommodation is cheap enough that staying over in Évora is easy.
The toll system, which catches people out
Portugal has barrier-free electronic tolls on many motorways, including sections of the A6 toward Évora. There is no booth and no cash option — cameras read the plate.
Rental cars need a transponder, and it is generally not automatic. Ask for it at the desk, confirm it is active, and expect a daily service fee of a couple of euros plus the tolls themselves. Skipping this means fines arriving weeks later with the rental company's administration charge attached.
Practical notes
| Item | Typical |
|---|---|
| Compact rental, per day | €30–55 |
| Fuel | €1.70–1.90/litre |
| Lisbon parking garage | €15–25/day |
| Toll transponder | €2–3/day + tolls |
Collect the car from a city depot on the morning you head out rather than at the airport on arrival — it saves you paying for a garage on the nights you are in Lisbon, which is dead money.
Automatics are less common and more expensive than manuals; book one specifically if you need it. And the coastal roads near Guincho are frequently windy enough to be felt at the wheel, which is worth knowing in a small, light car.