The Palácio Nacional de Mafra is, without question, the most extravagant palace in Portugal. Built in the early eighteenth century by a king flush with Brazilian gold, it is a monument to ambition on an almost absurd scale. My Portuguese wife, who grew up in Lisbon, still remembers her first school trip here in year 5 and being overwhelmed by the size of it. After many visits together over the years, it still impresses us both.

As for getting there from Lisbon, you have more options than most people realise. For many years my default approach was to head to Campo Grande bus station and take the first Carris Metropolitana bus to Mafra, which on the faster express services takes as little as 35 minutes.

More recently though, I have started to take Uber for this journey. It made the trip so much easier when I came here with my older parents, who wanted to finally visit properly, at their own pace and on their own terms, and for whom I did not want the stress of navigating bus stops and connections. A one-way fare from central Lisbon to the palace starts from €27, which is not unreasonable when you are travelling with someone else and just want to be dropped at the door. Bear in mind that fares rise sharply with demand, particularly at rush hour.

I should be honest about one thing: the palace is really the only reason to visit Mafra. The town itself is pleasant enough but unremarkable, and after a 90-minute visit to the palace and lunch, you will have seen everything worth seeing. For this reason, I always recommend combining Mafra with a visit to Ericeira, the charming fishing town on the Atlantic coast just 10km away. The bus connection between the two is straightforward, and it turns what could be a half-day into a genuinely satisfying full day out.

My wife grew up in Lisbon, and I have been exploring Portugal since 2001. Between us, we have made this journey more times than we can count.
Related articles: Introduction to Mafra

The library in the Palácio de Mafra is always the highlight for me; 36,000 books lining 88 metres of shelving, and home to a colony of bats that protect the ancient manuscripts from insects.

The bus is the option I use most often for this journey, and it is simpler than its confusing timetables might first appear. All services are direct and depart from Campo Grande bus station in Lisbon, which sits on both the yellow and green metro lines, making it easy to reach from anywhere in the city. My approach has always been to arrive at Campo Grande and take the first bus heading to Mafra, and in practice this means you are rarely waiting long. If there is a wait, the O Sol do Lumiar cafe beneath the gleaming NOS head office building is a perfectly good place to pass the time.

All buses on this route are operated by Carris Metropolitana, and there are several lines serving Mafra, each with slightly different routes and journey times. The honest truth is that the schedule is complicated enough that I would not try to plan around a specific service. The fastest option, the 2802, only runs during morning and evening rush hours. The 2804, which is the most frequent daytime service, runs roughly hourly on weekdays but less often at weekends. Add school holidays into the mix and the timetable changes again. This is exactly why my approach has always been to turn up and take the first bus going to Mafra.

That said, it is worth knowing what the lines are so you can make the best choice when you arrive. The 2802 is the fastest, using the A21 motorway and reaching Mafra in around 35 minutes, but as noted it is rush hour only. The 2804 uses the A8 motorway with a journey time of between 45 and 59 minutes and is the service you are most likely to find during the day. The 2803 takes around 60 minutes and continues on to Ericeira after Mafra, which is useful if you are planning to extend your day.

If you see the 2758, it travels via Loures on regional roads and takes over 75 minutes. It is classified as a regional route so the fare is slightly cheaper, but the time cost is rarely worth it and I would avoid it unless nothing else is available.

Because the schedule varies considerably depending on whether it is a weekday, weekend or school holiday, I would always recommend checking the current timetable directly on the Carris Metropolitana website at
www.carrismetropolitana.pt/
Or for individual line timetables:
• 2802 - www.carrismetropolitana.pt/lines/2802
• 2804 - www.carrismetropolitana.pt/lines/2804
• 2803 - www.carrismetropolitana.pt/lines/2803
• 2758 - www.carrismetropolitana.pt/lines/2758

The bus ticket is purchased from the driver, and a single fare costs €4.50. If you have a Navegante card and use the Zapping pre-pay system the fare drops to €3.10. There are no seat reservations and in my experience the bus has never been full.

The bus back to Lisbon pulling into the stop directly in front of the Palácio de Mafra.

Zapping
The Lisbon to Mafra bus fare can be paid using the Zapping pre-pay system. To use it, you load credit onto the Navegante card at any metro station and then simply use the card on the bus to pay for the fare. This card can be purchased from the ticket machines in the Campo Grande metro station but not from the Carris Metropolitana bus driver.
Personal insight: When showing friends around Lisbon, I give them a Zapping ticket with €15 credit. This makes it so much easier to hop on the trams, buses, metro and trains. If you're in Lisbon for a few days, I'd recommend the same.

The Mafra bus departs from the Campo Grande bus station, GPS:38.759, -9.159 (link to Google maps). The bus station is to the north of Lisbon and is served by the yellow and green metro lines.

Campo Grande bus station is not a conventional terminal building, and this catches out almost every first-time visitor. It is better understood as a series of bus stops spread around the Campo Grande metro station, with two main sets of stops on either side. There is little central signage, and it is very easy to feel lost the first time you arrive.

The good news for Mafra-bound travellers is that you want the western side, where the Carris Metropolitana buses depart from bays P23 and P24. This side feels more open and more recognisably like a bus station, with a proper row of bays and enough space to get your bearings. Look for buses displaying either "Mafra" or "Ericeira" as the final destination.

I should be upfront about the facilities on this side: there are none. No ticket desk, no toilets, no shops. It is, in every practical sense, a bus stop. Campo Grande is a busy business district though, so there are plenty of cafes and restaurants close by. I would avoid the cafes inside the metro station itself, which is a rather tired and gloomy building. The O Sol do Lumiar just below the NOS office building is a much better option for a coffee and a pastel de nata while you wait.

The bus to Mafra at Campo Grande on a Sunday, when services are less frequent and the buses noticeably busier. It is worth arriving a little earlier at weekends.

Bus Stops in Mafra

There are two options for where to get off in Mafra. The bus station at Parque Intermodal Alto da Vela (GPS: 38.9327, -9.326) is the first stop, just south of the palace, and the bus stop on Avenida Forças Armadas (GPS: 38.935, -9.327) is directly outside the entrance. Both are equally convenient as the walk from the bus station takes roughly the same time as the bus takes to cover the short distance between the two stops.
For the return journey, I would suggest waiting at the bus station rather than the stop outside the palace.

Uber and Bolt are worth serious consideration for this journey, and I say that as someone who spent years defaulting to the bus. The convenience of being dropped directly at the palace entrance is hard to argue with, and was the right choice when I visited Mafra with my older parents, removing the need to wait around a bus stop in the June heat and the risk of ending up on the slow 2758 service. It costs significantly more than the bus, but considerably less than a full day organised tour.

Fares from central Lisbon to the palace come in at around €27 for a standard UberX, with the Comfort option sitting a little higher at around €36. These are the base prices, and fares rise with demand, so rush hour travel can cost a third more. In my experience the cheapest time of day for fares is mid-morning, after the school run and before lunch (10-11am).

For this journey I would choose Comfort every time. The cars are of a noticeably higher standard, and drivers will always favour a higher-paying passenger.

This matters when returning from Mafra, where there are fewer drivers than in central Lisbon. Some drivers may be reluctant to travel into Lisbon if it takes them away from their usual area. In my experience this is not a serious problem, but it is worth allowing a little extra time for a driver to arrive.

Bolt tends to be slightly cheaper than Uber, though in my experience Uber's cars and drivers are consistently better, and that is what I use.

Uber and Bolt are both safe and well established in Portugal.

Insight: If you plan to use Uber or Bolt, download the app and set up your account before travelling to Portugal. Fares are charged in euros, so it is worth connecting a bank card that does not charge foreign currency fees if your home currency is not the euro.

Driving is the fastest way to reach Mafra, and if you have a car, it is a very easy journey. The route follows the A8 north from Lisbon, joining the A21 at junction 5, then turning off for Mafra at junction 3. From the toll booths it is a further 2km along the N9 dual carriageway into town. On a normal day the journey takes around 30 minutes, and once you are clear of Lisbon's expressways it is a pleasant and straightforward drive.

Parking in Mafra is refreshingly stress-free, which anyone who has driven to Sintra will appreciate. The first roundabout on the N9 leads directly to a large free car park just south of the palace, and there are smaller free car parks to the north and south of the palace as well. I have never once had difficulty finding a space.

Given that the palace is really the only reason to visit Mafra, I always recommend continuing on to Ericeira for the afternoon. It is only 10km away, the bus fare is €4.50, and most of the buses that serve Mafra continue directly to Ericeira. The journey takes around 25 minutes.

Ericeira is a former fishing village that has reinvented itself as Europe's only World Surfing Reserve, and the contrast with Mafra could not be greater. Where Mafra is stately and quiet, Ericeira is whitewashed houses with blue details, surf shops, boutiques and a restaurant scene that punches well above its size. Even if you have no interest in surfing, it is a genuinely lovely place to spend an afternoon.

One practical note about the bus station: it sits on the eastern edge of town, which means a decent walk downhill to the seafront and historic centre. It is not far, but it is worth knowing about for the return, as that same walk becomes uphill. I would allow an extra ten minutes to get back to the station rather than cutting it fine.

The restaurant selection in Ericeira is far better than in Mafra, so if you have not already eaten, this is the place to do it. The sunsets from the clifftops here are genuinely worth staying for if you have the energy.

The return bus to Lisbon runs directly from Ericeira back to Campo Grande and takes around 60 to 80 minutes depending on the service.

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