The small town of Sintra north of Lisbon is the home of two royal palaces. The contrast between those two buildings could hardly be bigger.
The National Palace near the town centre was built 1000 years ago for the Moorish rulers of the Taifa Kingdom of Lisbon (after the Cordoba Caliphate had broken up into a loose group of independent statelets), was taken over by the Christians in 1094 and continuously reworked by the later rulers of Portugal over the centuries
This is why it reflects Portuguese history from its beginnings to modern times.
The other palace was designed in the 19th century by a German amateur architect – who had a background in military engineering – for the Vienna-born King Ferdinand II, known by his epithet “The Artist King” rather than by his full name of Ferdinand August Franz Anton von Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, a royal who preferred etching, pottery and painting watercolours to the arts of governing and who had, as a young man, developed an obsession with the medieval myths that were surrounding the hills around Sintra.
The Fairy Tale Palace of Sintra
Guess which one of the two palaces is the most visited tourist attraction in the country – and has made it into the Seven Wonders Of Portugal by public vote.
Yes, it’s the candy-coloured fairy tale palace of Sintra.
We, however, were less attracted by the colours than by the palace’s extensive gardens. They cover more than 200 hectares – the equivalent of two square kilometers, roughly the size of Monaco – and feature lush tropical wilderness …
… that has been carefully styled, of course, and that is crisscrossed by just as carefully manicured pathways.
This is a romantic garden, after all, where everything has been carefully orchestrated for maximum effect.
You can take a shuttle bus from the ticket office to the gates of the palace, but we suggest you skip the bus and take the 15-minute walk instead because that way, you will gain a good impression of what is on offer.
This short walk will also allow you to catch the perfect first glimpse of the palace itself as it shimmers through the leafy treetops: a view that perfectly sums up the fairy tale character of the whole experience that is to follow.
It is behind the palace, however, where the more serious walking begins. You have the choice between several colour-coded routes to explore the gardens at depth. We went for the blue “Route of the Lakes”, …
… an easy-to-follow 1-hour round trip to a scenic composition of ponds.
This is romantic gardening at its most romantic: new vistas open up behind every turn of the trail making sure that there is never a dull moment.
The Pena gardens do not try to conjure up the calm grandeur of nature. Occasionally they come across as an overexcited comedian who leaps nervously from one punch line to the next, terrified by the thought that he might bore his audience. This can be a little tiring, but even then, you will be swayed by the sheer effort.
In the gardens you have the choice between several trails, all of which can be completed within one hour. So you can easily squeeze more than one such trail into your schedule – hike up the hills to the Cruz Alta, for instance, or stroll around the Garden of the Countess of Edla – but you should reserve some time for a visit of the palace buildings, too.
The actual living quarters of the Royal family were arranged around a Moorish-inspired interior courtyard …
… and are surprisingly simple and bourgeois in taste, more Biedermeier than Neuschwanstein.
In stark contrast to the exteriors of the building, these rooms are rather dark and sober. The palace was intended to serve the Portuguese royals as their summer residence: their holiday home, but one does not get the impression that this was a particularly joyful or happy place.
In the end, the palace – unlike its near neighbour in the town centre of Sintra – only served the royal family for a few decades rather than a thousand years.
Still, in the Pena’s brief life span, there was space for one poignant moment of history: it was here where the last queen of Portugal opted to spend her final night in the country before taking her entire family into their Brazilian exile following the Portuguese revolution of 1910. The fairy tale was over – it is only its echo that still reverberates in the hills of Sintra.
Finally, some brief advice on how to get there. The suburban train from Rossio station (in the dead centre of Lisbon) to Sintra takes about 35 minutes. Shuttle buses from the Sintra station forecourt will then take you to the rest of the way to Pena palace.
We recommend you go early to avoid the mid-morning rush but even if you make it to the entrance gates before 10 o’clock, you should prepare yourself for some – ultimately inevitable – queuing and standing around.
The worst bottleneck is the entrance to the main palace building and the royal living quarters where visitors are corralled into bunches that are then admitted in intervals of thirty minutes. If you are unlucky and miss a turn or two, you can easily have to wait for an hour.
Sintra is only one among many possible options for a day-trip away from Lisbon. Portugal is a small country, which allows you to travel to most tourist attractions in the morning and be back to your base for tea.
That includes Porto, the country’s second city, a good 2-hour train ride away from Lisbon. If you have travelled a long way and do not foresee ever coming back to Portugal, why not do it all in one trip? Think about it and have a look here and here.
But if you are looking for a real contrast to the buzz of the city, Sintra is your best shot. It can be extremely crowded, but the gardens are quite large, and you will always find a place that you will have all to yourself.
Do you agree that the romantic garden make it fit to be declared the fairy tale palace of Sintra?
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