Sintra — a small town 28km north-west of Lisbon in the Serra de Sintra hills, its forests of eucalyptus and pine concealing a concentration of eccentric royal palaces, Moorish fortifications and romantic 19th-century follies that together constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape (listed 1995) — is the finest day trip from Lisbon and one of the most visually extraordinary landscapes in Portugal: a place where the morning mist that collects on the forested hills above the town gives the palaces and castle ruins an atmosphere of genuine enchantment, where the Pena Palace (a mid-19th century royal residence of polychromatic Romanticist excess perched on the highest peak of the Serra) is visible from central Lisbon on clear days as a yellow-and-red fantasy above the forest canopy, and where the Moorish Castle below (a 9th-century Arab fortification of considerable scale, its crenellated walls following the ridge contour above the town) provides views across 40km of Portuguese landscape to the Atlantic horizon.
The Romantic movement — which transformed European aesthetics in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and replaced the rational classicism of the Enlightenment with a passion for the medieval, the Oriental, the mysterious and the sublime — found its most extreme Portuguese expression in Sintra: the German-born Ferdinand II (who married Queen Maria II of Portugal in 1836 and effectively invented modern Sintra as a romantic landscape project) spent 30 years building the Pena Palace and transforming the surrounding forest into a private park of carefully arranged visual experiences. Lord Byron, who visited Sintra in 1809 and called it a "glorious Eden" in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, created the literary template for Sintra's romantic reputation that subsequent generations of visitors have found confirmed.
Pena Palace & the National Park
The Pena Palace (Palácio Nacional da Pena) — built by Ferdinand II between 1838 and 1854 on the ruins of a Hieronymite monastery on the Serra's highest peak (529m), its towers, battlements, domes and tiled facades in yellow, terracotta and cobalt creating the most flamboyant exterior in Portuguese architecture — is the primary attraction of Sintra and one of the most visited monuments in Portugal (over 2 million visitors annually). The palace interior, preserved as it was when the royal family last occupied it in 1910 (the Portuguese Republic was proclaimed that year and the family went into exile), is remarkably intimate: the queen's dressing room, the king's smoking room, the Arab salon and the kitchen are all accessible and unchanged since the 19th century. The National Park surrounding the palace (Parque da Pena) covers 200 hectares of woodland with excellent walking trails between the palace and the Moorish Castle below. Entry: €18 palace and park, €8 park only; book at sintra-museus.pt to guarantee entry in peak season.
Quinta da Regaleira & the Moorish Castle
Quinta da Regaleira — 1km from Sintra town centre, a neo-Manueline Gothic palace and gardens built between 1904 and 1910 by the eccentric millionaire António Carvalho Monteiro — is Sintra's most mysterious monument: the gardens contain labyrinths, grottos, underground tunnels connecting the house to the garden follies, a chapel, a lake and most famously the Initiation Well (Poço Iniciático) — an inverted tower of 9 spiralling floors descending 27 metres underground, accessible from both the top and through connecting tunnels, its symbolism connected to Freemasonry and the Knights Templar. The well is the most photographed architectural feature in Sintra (after the Pena Palace exterior) and justifies the visit entirely. Entry: €12; the gardens can be explored freely once inside, but the tunnels require a torch (bring one or rent at the entrance). The Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros, entry €10, combined with Pena Palace €22) — a 9th-century Arab fortification rebuilt by Ferdinand II — provides the finest walking circuit in Sintra above the town.
Getting to Sintra & Staying
Sintra is most commonly visited as a day trip from Lisbon: the CP suburban train from Rossio station in Lisbon to Sintra takes 40 minutes (€2.25 each way, trains every 20 minutes) and is the most convenient approach — the Sintra station is 10 minutes walk from the town centre and the tourist bus connections to Pena Palace and Regaleira depart from outside the station. The tourist bus (Scotturb buses 434 and 435, approximately €3.50–5 per journey) connects the station to the main palace sites; walking between the palaces is possible but the gradients are demanding (the climb from town to Pena Palace is 350m). Sintra town itself — the National Palace (the oldest preserved royal palace in Portugal, two Gothic conical chimneys defining the town centre skyline) and the restaurants and pastelarias of the main street — deserves an hour of exploration. Staying overnight in Sintra (several excellent small hotels and quintas) allows access to the palaces in the early morning and evening before and after the day-trippers, dramatically reducing the crowds.
