By Bus in Lisbon

City buses are operated by the public transportation company Carris and run 6:30 AM to midnight. Each stop is posted with full details of routes. For a spectacular journey across the Ponte 25 de Abril over the Rio Tejo take a bus from Praça de Espanha to Costa da Caparica or Setúbal. You can buy tickets for buses, elevators, and funiculars at Carris kiosks in the Praça de Figueira, at the foot of the Elevador de Santa Justa, in the Santa Apolónia and Cais do Sodré railway stations, and elsewhere around town. If you don't have a ticket, you can pay the operator on board, but it's twice the price and you must pay in cash (have small change on hand if possible). Either pay when boarding or simply insert your ticket in the ticket-punch machine behind the driver and wait for the pinging noise.

For a weekend beach trip, take the 75-PRAIA bus from Campo Grande to the beaches across the river at Caparica. There are stops along the way near hotels in Saldanha, Marques de Pombal, and Amoreiras. It runs on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.

Lisbon's main bus terminal is the Gare do Oriente, adjacent to Parque das Nações, which also includes a railway and metro station. Most travel agents can sell you a bus ticket in advance; if you buy from the company ticket office at the main terminal, give yourself plenty of time to purchase before you depart. In summer it's wise to reserve a ticket at least a day in advance for destinations in the Algarve. There are four daily departures from Lisbon for the Algarve and Porto; towns closer to the capital have more frequent service. Most international buses and domestic express buses, including those to and from the Algarve, operate from within the Arco do Cego bus terminal, very near Praça Duque de Saldanha. The Saldanha and Picoas metro stations are within just a few minutes' walk.

Terminals at Praça de Espanha and Campo Pequeno—both of which have metro stops with the same name—serve Setúbal-Sesimbra and Portugal's northwest coast, respectively; the terminal at Campo das Cebolas, at the end of Rua dos Bacalhoeiros and east of Praça do Comércio, is for destinations in the Minho and the Algarve; buses to and from Mafra operate from Largo Martim Moniz, northeast of Praça da Figueira.

Estoril Coast & Sintra

Although the best way to reach Sintra and most of the towns on the Estoril Coast is by train from Lisbon, there are some useful bus connections between towns. Tickets are cheap (less than EUR 3.50 for most journeys), and departures are generally every hour (less frequent on weekends); local tourist offices have timetables. Try to arrive 15 minutes before your bus departs.

At Cascais, the bus terminal outside the train station has regular summer service to Guincho (15 minutes) and Sintra (one hour). From the terminal outside the Sintra train station, there are half-hourly departures in summer to the resorts of Praia das Maçãs and Azenhas do Mar (30 minutes) in the west, and north to Mafra in Estremadura (one hour). There's also regular year-round service from Sintra to Cascais and Estoril (one hour). The most useful Sintra service, however, is the circular Stagecoach/Scotturb Bus 434 (daily, every 20-30 minutes, 10:20-5:45; EUR 3.50 ticket valid all day), which connects Sintra station, the town center (the stop is outside the tourist office), Castelo dos Mouros, and the Pena Palace.