Stand on the Terrace Where a King Painted His Own Castle
You climb through the Sintra hills on foot or by bus, and the forest closes in — dense, tangled, often wrapped in mist. Then the trees break and the palace is simply there above you: a long red and yellow façade on a rock summit, its cylindrical bastion jutting out, a clock tower rising behind. On a clear day you can see it from Lisbon. Up close, the colours are the point. The red, yellow and blue you're looking at are the originals, restored at the end of the 20th century after decades in which the palace had faded to grey.
This is the Palácio Nacional da Pena, and it exists because of one man's stubborn Romantic imagination. The hill had held a chapel to Our Lady of Pena since the Middle Ages, later a small Hieronymite monastery where no more than eighteen monks lived in quiet. Lightning damaged it in the 18th century; the 1755 Lisbon earthquake reduced it to ruins. Decades later those ruins astonished the young Prince Ferdinand. As King consort Ferdinand II he acquired the old monastery, the surrounding lands and the nearby Castle of the Moors, and from 1842 set about turning the remains into a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. The commission went to Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, a German mining engineer and amateur architect who had travelled widely and likely knew the castles of the Rhine. Ferdinand and Queen Maria II intervened personally in the decoration — the King suggested the vaulted arches and Medieval and Islamic elements, and designed an ornate window for the main façade himself. The result is a deliberate mixture: Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Neo-Islamic, Neo-Renaissance, with nods to buildings like the Belém Tower. It is one of the major expressions of 19th-century Romanticism anywhere, a national monument, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape of Sintra, and still used for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic.
Walk the Arches Yard, the Queen's Terrace and the Royal Apartments
The palace is small enough to see properly and strange enough to keep you looking. Structurally it divides into the foundations and their walls — two gateways, one protected by a drawbridge — the restored convent structure with its clock tower, the Arches Yard in front of the chapel with its wall of Moorish arches, and the palatial zone with its cylindrical bastion, its interiors decorated in the cathédrale style.
- The convent survivals. As much as possible of the Hieronymite monastery was preserved — the cloister, the dining room, the sacristy and the Manueline-Renaissance chapel — and embedded in the new building. The chapel escaped the earthquake largely undamaged, along with its marble and alabaster work attributed to Nicolau Chanterene.
- The Queen's Terrace. Perhaps the best spot for taking in the whole architecture of the palace at once. Look for the sundial cannon that used to fire every day at noon.
- The interiors. The rooms were adapted as the royal family's summer residence, and you can see a good collection of furniture and the royal apartments, along with stuccos, walls painted in trompe-l'œil and 19th-century tile revetments forming part of the royal collections. The newer displays include the Private Apartments.
- The park. A vast forested area completely surrounding the palace, spreading over uneven terrain, created at the same time as the palace by Ferdinand II with the help of Baron von Eschwege and Baron von Kessler. The King had trees brought from distant lands: North American sequoia, Lawson's cypress, magnolia and Western redcedar, Chinese ginkgo, Japanese cryptomeria, and quantities of ferns and tree ferns from Australia and New Zealand, concentrated in the Queen's Fern Garden. A labyrinthine system of paths and narrow roads links the palace to points of interest across the park and to its two gated exits.
- In the park, don't stop at the palace. The Chalet decorated with bark — the Chalet da Condessa d'Edla, the alpine-style retreat built by Elisa Hensler, the Countess of Edla, and Ferdinand II in the western reaches of the gardens — is particularly worth visiting, and the greenhouses, stables and lakes are pleasant. The Fountain of the Small Birds, a 19th-century octagonal pavilion with a spherical dome and Arabic inscriptions on its outer walls, sits between the Hot House and the Valley of the Lakes; its entry is generally gated but you can see inside, and there's a garden wall seat outside. The park is much quieter than the palace and can be explored on foot or by a small tourist train service.
Time Your Ticket, Then Give the Park Your Afternoon
Sintra can be extremely busy, particularly in summer and especially at weekends, and Pena is the reason most people come. The main sights are best visited at the start of the day or late in the afternoon, to avoid the crowds and queues. Spring and autumn give you comfortable temperatures, thinner crowds and the vegetation at its peak; summer is hot and crowded; winter is cooler, damp and windy. Go on a weekday if you can.
Tickets are sold on a timed basis, and you will not get a refund if you miss your time — arrive at the park about thirty minutes before your slot so you have time to walk up to the palace. Buy online in advance to avoid the long queue, and note that buying three days ahead earns a discount, as do tickets covering more than one site. Admission is managed by Parques de Sintra, whose website carries current prices and opening times; the ticket categories range from a park-only visit through the essential palace-and-park visit to guided and theatrical options, the latter an experience with actors. The park opens earlier than the palace and closes later, with last admission an hour before closing.
Private vehicles are not authorised to drive up to the monument; you walk the pedestrian trails or take public transport. From Lisbon, CP's Sintra Line runs from Oriente, Rossio and Entrecampos. From Sintra train station, Scotturb bus 434 goes up to Pena. On foot, three marked trails climb from town: the Santa Maria Trail from the Info Parques de Sintra office in S. Pedro de Sintra, the Seteais Trail from the Palace of Seteais, and the Villa Sassetti Trail from Largo Ferreira de Castro. Walking from Sintra to the palace takes about an hour, and it is uphill. The park has two entrances, the Main Entrance and the Lakes Entrance.
The single most common mistake is treating Pena as a building. Most visitors only see the terraces and the exterior and skip the gardens entirely. Budget your time so the palace doesn't eat all of it — the woods, the fern valley and the chalet are the half of the estate that stays peaceful while the terraces fill up.
Fill the Rest of Your Day in Sintra
Pena is one of several sites in the Sintra hills, and a combined ticket makes the others easy to add.
- Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros). Ruins of a castle built by the Moors from the 10th century onwards, with stunning views from high above sea level. There isn't much inside, and the walls are very narrow in places with no safety railings — take care.
- Sintra National Palace. In the town itself, the summer estate of the Portuguese royal family from the Middle Ages until the 1910 republican revolution. Look for the Magpie Room, its ceiling decorated with magpies in a hint to end gossiping; the Coats-of-Arms Room added by Manuel I; and the azulejo tiles inside and on the façade. The two tall kitchen chimneys are the most striking feature of the exterior.
- Quinta da Regaleira. A palace and gardens begun in the late 19th century by Carvalho Monteiro, with the Italian architect Luigi Manini, gathering Gothic, Manueline and Renaissance currents alongside Masonic symbolism. The Initiation Well looks like an upside-down tower, with plateaus at intervals descending to the depths. Hang onto the map you get with your ticket.
- Quintinha de Monserrate and Convento dos Capuchos. An old estate with a farmyard where you can learn about traditional local farming, and a secluded abbey in a wood where monks lived in close contact with nature — no electric light, so bring your flash for photographs, and don't miss the wood-carved chapel, the library and the friars' cells.
- Further out. Take the tram from beside the Museum of Modern Art and ride downhill to Praia das Maçãs, a small and surprisingly calm seaside resort, about 45 minutes and delightful. Eight kilometres along the same line you can stop at the Adega Regional de Colares, the Colares winery, for a taste of this very rare wine. Or head for Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of the European continent, reached by Scotturb bus from Cascais or Sintra.
Start With the Ticket, Then the Train
Pena rewards a little planning more than most places: book your timed palace ticket online, pick a weekday in spring or autumn, and aim for the first slots of the morning or the last of the afternoon. Then arrange the rest around it — the train from Lisbon, the bus or trail up from Sintra, and enough hours afterwards for the park, the Moorish Castle and the town below. Decide which ticket category suits you, check the current times on the Parques de Sintra site, and build the day around the walk down.