The Palace de Pena in Sintra, Portugal!

There is so much to do in Sintra, the gorgeous mountain resort town northwest of Lisbon. From the old center restaurants, shops and bars, to the museums and history everywhere and of course…. the famous palaces! They are everywhere! In fact, there is literally so much to do that there’s no way you can really take Sintra in without a week or two. We were there for 3 days and although it was glorious, we felt like we missed so much and we know for sure we will be back!

We decided to focus on seeing 3 of the great Palaces, The Quinta de Regaleira, The Moorish Castle and of course, Palce de Pena Castle! However, we spent so much time at them that we decided to skip the Moorish Castle. By the time we finished the first two we were Castled out!

We had checked out blogs from previous visitors before and decided that we would only do the outside of the Palace de Pena which saved us a ton of time and money.  Frankly, the outside ia so massive that it was enough! You can walk around the magnificant gardens and mountain trails and then once you reach the Palace you can stroll for hours around the different battlements and walkways thoughout the castle and even sit on the terrace at a restaurant and enjoy a bottle of wine and some tapas overlooking the valley below!

The bright colors of the castle were beautiful and there were nooks and crannies everywhere that you could dodge into including old hidden straircases, guard towers and even a curvy stone walkway all the way around the castle which overlooks the cliffs below. You can see the Moorish Castle from here as well, resting on the next peak!

To get there, take bus 24 from the old city center. It’s cheap and quick and unless you are in fantastic shape and have hours to kill you do not want to hike up the mountain to the palace! We hiked first to the Quinta and from there you can catch the bus up to Pena for a few Euros! It was a wonderful trip and we highly recommend making this one of your castle visits!

Pictures

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Palace de Pena