Festival Info for Getting from Lisbon to Cascais

From the "ARRIVING IN PORTUGAL - 2013 Fall Festival News - October 17, Issue #7"

TRANSPORT INFORMATION

If you would prefer to make your own way to the Festival site, you can either take a train or a taxi from the airport. [If you are leaving from a hotel in central Lisbon and are close to the Rossio metro station, that is on the green line, so you do not need to change metro lines. See the Lisbon metro map with streets.]

 

Metro/Train: From the airport take the Metro Red Line to Alameda.  At Alameda change and take the Green Line to Cais do Sodre.  Change at Cais do Sodre and take the Cascais train line to Cascais (last stop on the line).  The Metro from the Airport to Cais do Sodre will take about 35 minutes and will cost €1.40. The Train from Cais do Sodre to Cascais will take about 40 minutes and cost €2.15.  Useful links: Metro/Train map, Metro website, and Train website.

 

Aerobus/Train:  From the airport take the Aerobus to Cais do Sodre.  At Cais do Sodre take the Cascais train line to Cascais (last stop on the line).  The Aerobus from the Airport to Cais do Sodre will take about 30 minutes and will cost €3.50. The Train from Cais do Sodre to Cascais will take about 40 minutes and cost €2.15. Useful links:  Aerobus website and Train website.

 

Taxi: A taxi from the airport to Cascais will cost around €35.  It is always wise to ask the taxi driver first approximately how much the fare will be.

Cascais & Sintra Tourist Bus Info

Scottub is the local bus company for Cascais, but they highlight routes for tourists on their website.

 

Diagram of Cascais route with info; note that the bus runs in a circle.

http://www.scotturb.com//Portals/0//Carreiras//hor%C3%A1rio//HORARIO%20427_10_9_2012_15h54m56s.jpg

 

Cascais interactive map; scroll in then click on a red icon to get more info about the sight and the bus lines that go there

http://www.scotturb.com/Default.aspx?tabid=119&item=Cascais

 

Sintra interactive map

http://www.scotturb.com/Default.aspx?tabid=119&item=Sintra

 

Which local bus goes to which site; note that they have tourist routes for Cascais  & Sintra:

http://www.scotturb.com/Default.aspx?tabid=186&language=en-US

Fares and how to buy tickets

http://www.scotturb.com/Default.aspx?tabid=157

2 Seats on Inbound Festival Shuttle

Sangha members have 2 seats on the Fri, Oct 25, 3pm shuttle from the airport they're giving away to anyone who can use them. First reply gets them both.

Train from Lisbon to Cascais

For the most recent info, see the post Festival Info for Getting from Lisbon to Cascais

You may have seen this on the Festival Travel Info webpage: "Trains from Lisbon’s Cais do Sodré (Metro: Cais do Sodré) run to Cascais along the scenic coastal line via Estoril. Trains leave twice an hour and stop at Estoril, Estoril Monte and Cascais." The Festival team is working to add more information about this.

 

Because some information, such as the price of tickets, on the definitive website of the train can be so hard to find, even though in some ways the English version of the site is useful (see For More Information below), I am trusting that this information is correct until we get more information:

The short answer, based on http://wikitravel.org/en/Cascais

"Cascais is easily reachable from Lisbon  by train (40min), from the Cais do Sodré station. A return ticket costs 2.30€ and can be bought from the automatic ticket machines. Remember to keep the ticket as it will be checked and punched by the conductor in both directions."

The English call a round-trip ticket a "return," so that's cheap (about $3)! That page was last updated in August; it looks like the price has gone up 20 cents.

For More Information
Lisbon-> Cascais Train Schedule - helpfully added to the Festival Travel Info webpage from the Portugal train website; much easier to find! With a helpful diagram of the route with stops.

Portugal Train Website in English - the site is well organized, but when you follow the links, you end up at pages like this:

• Price of tickets, which are only in Portuguese, as far as I can tell.
• For the NetTicket feature on the main page, click Timetable and Prices (I didn't find the Lisboa - Cais do Sodré  or Cascais stations in the drop-down list of the default tab), but the results say that it's a 3-hour trip, when everywhere else I've read said it's 40 minutes?? The price for a "poupou" (which even my linguist friend couldn't find a relevant translation of, but in context I take this for at least a regular adult one-way ticket, if not a round-trip) is 2.50 euros.

No wonder it's taking the Festival team a while to provide the details!

Lisbon Hotels

If you are sightseeing in Lisbon before or after Festival, or you want a hotel near the airport because you have an early flight out, when the Festival shuttles aren't running, here are some places Sangha have booked:

Central Lisbon

• Grande Pensao Residencial Alcobia
• Independente, which is both a hostel and a hotel

Airport

• Holiday Inn Express - doesn't have a shuttle, but is 1 mile so taxi affordable. Note that taxi scams are common, especially for the airport, and that one of the ways to prevent being overcharged is to know the direct route, so here's a map showing the trip from this hotel to the airport. For more about taxi scams, see the post Transportation from Lisbon to Cascais.

If you have an early-morning flight, another option is to book an airport shuttle from your accommodations in Cascais; for more information, see the post Transportation from Lisbon to Cascais.
By the way, there is more transportation info here.
For example, if you are staying in Lisbon but traveling to or from the airport at a reasonable hour, take the Aerobus.

Note for those who are getting these posts via email: I am hoping that others who book Lisbon hotels will send me info about where they're staying, so that I can add them to this site. Which means you will have to check here for updates. (Unlike a regular website, with a blog I'd normally make a new post for new info and give it the same label, but that seems unwieldy for this scenario.)

If you don't have my personal email, you can reach me at meredw AT Hotmail.

Transportation from Lisbon to Cascais

Note: Except for what I added here at the bottom about the bus and taxi from the airport to Cascais, if you signed up for the KMC Washington Portugal Festival enews group, you've already gotten this info in email.

A very kind Sangha told me about an affordable shuttle she found, which can pick you up at your door and take you at any hour to Lisbon Airport. You don't even need to prepay, although you can.

Lisbon Airport Transfers

 

According to her, it "is 56 euros for 1-4 people. You can prepay in USD using PayPal or give cash to the driver. It's 72 euros for 5-9 people."

 

This option probably works better for everyone who has an early flight or accommodations that aren't booked through the Festival. (Another option would be to book a hotel in Lisbon the night before your flight, especially if they have an airport shuttle that runs in the early hours, although you could take a taxi. Warning: I've read of many taxi scams from Lisbon Airport, so you have to be careful. See, for example, How to Catch a Cab from the Airport without Being Ripped Off. The Lisbon Metro (subway) doesn't run between 1am and 6:30am, according to their website, 

The bus is more complicated. On the official website of the main bus company in Lisbon,  STCP, it says they have "services that run all night." You'd want to investigate further before planning on the bus.)

 

If you're arriving early in Lisbon, before the scheduled Festival shuttles are running, and they don't add a shuttle time that works for you (which you can request from your booking cart), it sounds like the train from Lisbon to Cascais is the best option: affordable and scenic. When you go to that train link, you'll see in the diagram of the route, at the right it says Cais do Sodré, which is Lisbon. According to Wikipedia, "Cais do Sodré is the railway station in Lisbon, Portugal, serving westbound suburban route to Cascais resort. It is adjacent to the Lisbon Metro station of the same name which is the terminus for subway's Green Line (Linha da Caravela). ... The complex is situated at Duque da Terceira square in central Lisbon on the bank of the Tagus [river]." For the Green Line, see this useful Lisbon Metro map.

 

Some travelers online have said that taking a taxi from Lisbon to Cascais is reasonably priced. Again, you'd want to be careful about being overcharged.

 

There's also a bus between Lisbon and Cascais. I started looking into the bus, but it's complicated! Lots of bus routes, websites only in Portuguese, various companies that go to different places ...

 

There's also a local bus in Cascais, run by Scotturb, that goes to places like Sintra, and it's not simple either. No wonder there isn't more info yet on the Festival Transportation page!

Visiting Lisbon? Aerobus between Airport and City Center

If you're planning to visit Lisbon before or after Festival, I've read in various places that the Aerobus is the best option for transportation between the city and the airport. As it says on their user-friendly website:

The local Carris bus company runs a bus transport service connecting Lisbon's airport to the city centre passing by the main transport hubs such as Comercio Square and Cais de Sodré.
This service is called AeroBus and passes by dozens of Lisbon hotels, thus providing tourists arriving at the airport with easy access to their accommodation.
An alternative to the bus is the metro.

TIMETABLE
07:00h to 23:00h (departures from Airport)
07:45h to 22:30h (departures from Cais do Sodré [the Lisbon train station])

FREQUENCY
Every 20 minutes (every 30 mins after 9pm)
PRICE: €3.50

Car Rental

From a travel-savvy Sangha member:
If you're planning to rent a car, which isn't necessary unless you're going to be traveling before or after Festival, and trains and buses won't work for you (and in Europe, of course, public transportation tends to be very good, unless you're going to more remote places), book it with American Express card if you have one because it offers lots of advantages, particularly on insurance.

I've also read on the Internet that a lot of travelers say not to rent from Hertz abroad.

Prices in Cascais

Thanks to DavidB for this link:
Cost of Living in Cascais, Portugal
Scroll down to see prices for groceries, meals out, taxi, gas, etc.

Biking Around Cascais

Biking is said to be wonderful along the beaches in and around Cascais.

There are supposedly free single-speed bikes available in Cascais thru a program called BiCas.

Travelers commenting on the web have widely different opinions about the quality of the bikes, but everyone seems to agree that biking is wonderful along the coast.

(To see photos of the promenade, see Walking between Cascais and Estoril)

You can also rent bikes, or scooters.

BikePlan - 15€ per day, 50€ per week

I'm sure there are others too. 

You may see reference to Xbike but now seems to be a shirt manufacturer!

Probably want to check with the tourist office in Cascais, because some of the info on the web seems out of date.

This website has a nice map of a route from Sinta to Cascias.

Sintra - Cascais cycling map

I stumbled on this map, which can show routes and topography, among other factors:

There are some fun features to play with.

Bus Info for Cascais

Scotturb runs buses to beaches and sights in Cascais and Sintra.
Scroll down to see the list of destinations, then click on a route number to see the timetable and route details.