Sintra Castle Guide: Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle

Pena Palace, the castle you can see from Lisbon

Pena Palace is a Romanticist palace in São Pedro de Penaferrim, on the top of a hill in the Sintra Mountains above the town of Sintra. On a clear day it can be seen from Lisbon and much of its metropolitan area. It began as a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena, then a Hieronymite monastery that housed at most eighteen monks. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake reduced the monastery to ruins, though the chapel survived.

In 1838 King consort Ferdinand II acquired the ruins, the surrounding lands and the nearby Castle of the Moors. He commissioned the German amateur architect Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege to turn the site into a summer residence for the royal family. Building ran from 1842 to 1854 and was nearly finished by 1847, with the King and Queen Maria II intervening on decoration and symbolism. It is now a national monument, a UNESCO World Heritage Site within the Cultural Landscape of Sintra and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal, and it is still used for state occasions by the President of Portugal.

The Moorish Castle, the older fortress next door

The Castle of the Moors, or Castelo dos Mouros, was built in the 8th and 9th centuries during Muslim Iberia as the central stronghold of the surrounding farmland. It surrendered voluntarily to Christian forces after the fall of Lisbon in 1147, and Afonso Henriques granted a charter in 1154 to thirty settlers who would hold it. King Ferdinand I ordered rebuilding in 1375, but the site was progressively abandoned for the village below, and by 1493 its chapel had fallen out of use. The 1755 earthquake damaged the chapel again.

Ferdinand II rescued the ruin in 1840, consolidating the walls and replanting the slopes as part of his Pena project. Today it is a National Monument with a 450-metre double line of walls snaking over the granite, and wide views over Sintra towards Mafra and Ericeira. It matters to your planning because it sits between Pena and the town, so the two sights chain together on foot, our estimate under an hour of walking between them at an easy pace.

The park gate, the shuttle and the climb

You enter through the Pena Park, over 200 hectares of forest planted by Ferdinand II with trees collected from around the world: North American sequoia, Lawson's cypress, Chinese ginkgo, Japanese Cryptomeria and tree ferns from Australia and New Zealand gathered in the Queen's Fern Garden. The climb from the park gate to the palace is steep, which is why the shuttle exists at $5.04 (€4.50) round trip and runs every 15 minutes. Take it.

The walk up is pleasant on the way down, punishing at the start of the day.

The palace: convent, terraces and interiors

The palace stands almost entirely on rock and has four sections: the fortified foundations with two gateways, one protected by a drawbridge, the restored old convent with its clock tower completed in 1843, the Arches Yard with its wall of Moorish arches, and the palatial zone with its cylindrical bastion. Inside the old convent you walk the Manueline cloister, the refectory and the chapel with its marble and alabaster works attributed to Nicolau Chanterene.

The interiors were adapted as the royal summer residence, with stuccos, trompe-l'œil painted walls and 19th-century tiles from the royal collections. Look for the Dining Room and Pantry, the Chambers of King Carlos, the Bedroom of Ferdinand II and the Dressing Room of Queen Amelia with its Tea Room. The Queen's Terrace is the best spot for the overall picture of the architecture, and it holds a sundial cannon that used to fire every day at noon.

Down to the Moorish Castle walls

A road links the Pena grounds to the Moorish Castle, so the natural order is palace first, walls second while your legs still work. The circuit follows the 450-metre double wall over the granite promontory, past the small Chapel of São Pedro where excavations begun in 1979 found medieval funerary tombs from around the turn of the 13th century. From the towers you get the panoramic view over the municipality of Sintra, and on a clear day Mafra and Ericeira.

Budget a steady hour for the wall walk, our estimate.

Opening times and last entries

The Pena park opens 09:00-19:00 with the last ticket at 18:00. The palace itself opens 09:30-18:30, with last admission at 17:30 or 18:00 depending on the day. The Moorish Castle opens 09:30-18:00 with the last ticket at 17:30. Children under 6 enter free. The shuttle between park entrance and palace runs every 15 minutes, so you never wait long either way.

The practical consequence: the palace stops admitting before the park closes, so do not leave the palace until last light. Go inside first, then spend the afternoon in the park and the Moorish Castle, which stay open later.

Quiet times and what to wear

The quiet windows are early morning and late afternoon, our estimate, because the coach tours from Lisbon reach the hill in the middle of the day. If you can take the first palace slot or arrive after 16:00 you will share the terraces with far fewer people. The hill is cooler and foggier than Lisbon, the geographer Al-Bacr described Sintra as permanently submersed in fog that never dissipates, so bring a layer even in summer.

Wear shoes that grip. The park paths are steep and the Moorish Castle wall walk is on stone with exposed edges. There is no dress code inside the palace, but the interiors are reached through narrow staircases, so leave large bags behind. The Pena Palace ticket notes to take the shuttle rather than walk the climb from the gate.

From Lisbon to Sintra town

Sintra is about 30 km from Lisbon, and the classic Sintra tour from Lisbon removes every transfer decision. The full-day Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo da Roca and Cascais tour meets in front of Rossio station at 08:00, the small-group minivan tour picks up at your hotel in central Lisbon, and the half-day option departs from Avenida da Liberdade 12 next to the Hard Rock Cafe. On your own, the train from Lisbon to Sintra town is the standard route, then the hill remains.

The town sits well below the palaces. From Sintra town to the Pena park entrance you need a bus or a taxi, and the road is winding. This is the single most common planning mistake: people budget for the train and forget the climb.

From the park gate to the palace gate

Even after you reach the Pena park entrance you are not there. The ticket notes are blunt about it: the climb from the park gate to the palace is steep, take the shuttle. The shuttle costs $5.04 (€4.50) round trip and runs every 15 minutes, which is cheap insurance for your knees and your palace entry time, because late arrivals lose the slot.

If you are walking the Moorish Castle into the plan, note that the castle connects to the Pena grounds by a road, so you can go up by shuttle and down on foot via the walls, ending closer to the town. That downhill order is the one we would pick for a self-guided day.

Choosing your routing

The palace interior is a fixed circuit and the park is bigger than most people expect, over 200 hectares of paths. Add the shuttle waits, the queue at the gate and the walk to the Moorish Castle, and a serious visit is a five to six hour day on site, our estimate. If you also want Quinta da Regaleira, the estate built for António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro between 1904 and 1910 with its 27-metre Initiation Well, you are into a full day, which is exactly what the nine-hour tour from Lisbon is built for.

The list

Details worth knowing before you go, from the colours to the cannon.

• The palace was grey for decades. The red and yellow facades faded over time and the palace was visually identified as entirely grey until the end of the 20th century, when it was repainted in the original colours Wikipedia, Pena Palace.
• The main window has a sister in Tomar. Ferdinand II designed the ornate facade window himself, inspired by the chapter house window of the Convent of the Order of Christ in Tomar Wikipedia, Pena Palace.
• A cannon used to fire from the Queen's Terrace. The terrace holds a sundial cannon that fired every day at noon Wikipedia, Pena Palace.
• The last queen spent her last night there. Queen Amélia, the last queen of Portugal, spent her final night at the palace before leaving into exile in 1910 Wikipedia, Pena Palace.
• The Initiation Well was never a well. The 27-metre inverted tower at Quinta da Regaleira has a spiral staircase of nine flights and served ceremonial purposes, not water Wikipedia, Quinta da Regaleira.