Tucked away in the foothills of Portugal’s Sintra Mountains, 30 km northwest of Lisbon, lies the town of Sintra. Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995, Sintra is famous for being a favorite retreat of the Portuguese imperial family prior to 1910 when they fled the country to avoid revolution. The town is home to a number of striking castles and palaces, the most well-known, unique, and popular being Pena Palace. The red and yellow Romanticist castle is a recognizable icon of Portugal and at the top of many visitors’ lists, including mine!
The first time we visited Lisbon in August 2022, Pena Palace and other sites in Sintra were closed to tourists due to extreme heat and risk of forest fire. Luckily, we were able to go back the following year. Below is everything you need to know to plan your own trip to the town of Sintra and Pena Palace including tips on how to beat the crowds.
When to visit Sintra
The parks and monuments of Sintra are open every day except Christmas (December 25) and New Year’s Day (January 1). Summer is peak travel season in Europe and Portugal in particular; you can expect heat (sometimes in the extreme) and dense crowds in July and August. For more comfortable weather and fewer people, aim for May to early June or September.
We were in Sintra in mid-August from a Sunday evening into a Monday, with Monday morning being our time at Pena Palace. I expect that weekend days would be even busier, so try to visit on a weekday if possible.
Planning your time at Pena Palace
This timeline is based on having arrived to Sintra the night before and stayed overnight. You can still see a lot with a daytrip but if you’re committed to beating the crowds, I think staying the night before is the best option and also allows time to explore the town and see other sites, like the National Palace.
8:10 AM – Uber to Pena Park Gate
Rideshare drivers are plentiful and inexpensive in and around Lisbon, including Sintra – this is the easiest and fastest way to get from your hotel to the palace park and beat the crowds. There is no parking available at the park gate and local buses don’t start running until 8:50 AM. The exact time to call your Uber will depend on how far your hotel is from the palace, so be sure to map it the day before.
8:40 AM – Wait in line
The line gets very long leading up to 9:00 AM when the buses begin dropping off huge groups. For a weekday morning, arriving between 8:30 and 8:45 should give you a good chance of catching the first shuttle to the palace without having to stand in line outside the gate for an hour.
9:00 AM – Gate opens
A park attendant will scan the bar code on your tickets at the gate. Buy your tickets online ahead of time (more on that next), and have them ready as screenshots or hardcopies because you may not have a sufficiently strong signal to pull them up on your phone. A little inside the gate is a sign indicating the shuttle stop. Get in line quickly because the shuttle only takes about 25 passengers at a time.
9:15 AM – Shuttle to Palace Departs
I got a little antsy waiting for the shuttle to arrive but it was worth not having to walk up the hill to the palace. It’s a quick drive up to the palace.
9:20 AM – Arrive to Palace, Tour the Exterior
This is the time to experience the beautiful courtyard and terraces without the crowds. Most people will be queuing up for the interior tour. Instead, go up the stairs to your left, through an archway, and into the main courtyard where you will get the most famed perspectives on the palace’s exterior, including the clocktower and arches, and perfect views of the Moorish Castle on the next hill.
10:20 AM – Tour The Palace Interior
Once you’ve walked all of the terraces and taken plenty of photos, you can tour the palace interior depending on your ticket (see the next section for more details). This timing assumes you have a 10:00 AM pass, which will allow you to enter the interior up to 10:29 AM.
Here are a few photos of the palace interior. I thought it was interesting but there is quite a bit of shuffling through with the crowd so you can’t linger in any of the rooms.
11:00 AM – Coffee and Pastry at the Cafe
Finish up your time at Pena Palace with an espresso and a little treat. This is a chance to sample one of Sintra’s two famous pastries, travesseiro or queijada de Sintra.
Queijada de Sintra are similar in shape to the more famous pastéis de nata but are made with fresh cheese and cinnamon. The travesseiro is a pillow-shaped pastry (travesseiro means pillow) filled with a sweet, eggy almond cream and dusted with powdered sugar.
11:30 AM – Explore the rest of the Park and beyond
This timeline leaves you plenty of time to explore the rest of the Parques de Sintra. You can take the shuttle back down and explore the gardens within the Park of Pena. Or you can see the nearby Moorish Castle (though this requires a separate ticket). Another popular option is Quinta de Regaleria, which is also ticketed separately.
Buying tickets
Tickets to visit all the major sites in Sintra, including Pena Palace, are available for purchase online at https://bilheteira.parquesdesintra.pt/home. I personally found the process of selecting the right ticket to be very confusing and there’s conflicting advice online. Here is what you need to know:
The 14.00 € tickets listed as Park and National Palace of Pena grant access to the Park of Pena as well as the interiors of Palace of Pena. These tickets require you to choose a specific date and time. The time you choose is for a 30-minute window for entry to the interior of the palace, but you can enter the park as early as you like on the chosen day. To give yourself enough time to see the outside areas before they get too crowded, consider a ticket for 10:00 or 10:30 AM.
If you want to see the exterior of the the palace but aren’t interested in the inner rooms, then you only need a ticket for Park of Pena for 7.50 €. This gets you into the gates of the park and leaves you free to explore the sites within on your own timeline, including the exterior of Pena Palace, gardens and grounds, and the chalet and garden of the Countess of Edla, built for the second wife of Ferdinand II. These tickets are flexible and are valid for 365 days from the date of purchase.
When you purchase either of these, you will have the option of buying a ticket for the shuttle bus the circulates inside the park. This is listed as “Supplement – Transfer” and costs 3.00 €. I definitely recommend getting this ticket. The shuttle stop is just inside the park gates and cuts out a 30-minute uphill climb to the palace. Your ticket also includes a ride back down the hill to the gate when you’re done.