Since buying our car in April 2025, we’ve been usingf the weekends to explore more areas near Lisbon. My map is full of pins for places I want to visit, and last weekend we checked out one of them: Santiago de Cacém and the Miróbriga Roman Ruins!
Santiago de Cacém and the Miróbriga Roman Ruins are located about an hour and a half drive south of Lisbon in the district of Setúbal. I originally learned about this area while driving to the Algarve for a weekend. I saw signs for it on the estrada, looked it up, and it looked really cool, so I saved it for later.
We arrived to the Archeological Site of Miróbriga about 10 minutes before noon and learn they were closing for lunch for 2 hours at noon, so we couldn’t go in. We decided to pivot and go to Sines to get lunch, and come back. About 5 minutes into our drive, we saw a hillside town with a castle atop of the hill, and decided to head there instead. This hillside town is Santiago do Cacém and it is a quiet but charming town with a cool castle and gardens!
In Santiago de Cacém we walked around the perimeter of the castle walls and enjoyed the surrounding views. We also checked out the castle gardens, which were beautiful. The interior of the castle has been repurposed as a cemetery and you can walk around it. An interesting fact is that the rocks used in the castle were actually “quarried” from the Miróbriga Roman Ruins! Afterwards we ate a delicious Portuguese lunch at Restaurante O Grelhador right in town.
Lunch took about an hour, so by the time we were done, the Miróbriga Roman Ruins were open again, and we headed straight there! The archeological site at Miróbriga includes a site museum, which I recommend you visit first to understand what you’ll see while walking around the actual ruins. The displays at the museum are in Portuguese, but they have handouts with information in several different languages if you need them.
The archeological site of Miróbriga is thought to have been a Celtic settlement from the 4th century BC. It was later taken over by the Romans after the 1st century AD. The site includes the ruins of the Shrine to Venus and the Empire, Roman Baths, houses, stores, and a hippodrome (which was not accessible when we visited). It is thought that around the 4th century AD the town began to decline like other cities in the Roman Empire. By the time of the Moorish invasions, around the year 712, the town had been abandoned, and the population had moved to the nearby hill where the medieval castle now stands.
We really enjoyed exploring Miróbriga Roman Ruins! The Roman Baths were in incredibly good shape, including the beautiful Roman bridge. The roads built over 2,000 years were in excellent condition. The remaining columns on one of the temples were beautiful, and the perfectly preserved original frescoes in some of the walls were incredible to see! We were also lucky to visit during wildflower season, so the ruins were all surrounded by colorful wildflowers!
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday from 09h00 to 12h30 and from 14h00 to 17h30; Sunday from 09h00 to 12h00 and from 14h00 to 17h30. Closed on Monday, January 1st, Easter Sunday, May 1st, and December 25th.
Santiago de Cacém and the Miróbriga Roman Ruins definitely make for a great day trip near Lisbon! An added bonus is that we had the ruins to ourselves, and only saw 2 other families during the entire we were there!
On the way to or from the ruins, don’t miss the Quintinha Windmill. Built around 1813, the windmill stands overlooking Santiago de Cacém. On good days it still does the traditional milling of cereals!
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