Pena Palace, Sintra: the Palace, the Park and the Slot

The Old Palace, a monastery first

A chapel stood on the ridge from the 12th century. In 1503 Manuel I founded the Royal Monastery of Our Lady of Pena, later home to the Order of Saint Jerome. The 1755 earthquake damaged it, and when the religious orders were dissolved in 1834 the monastery was abandoned.

That shell survives as the Old Palace, the former monastery wing, and it holds the Private Apartments that only the Complete visit enters.

The New Palace of Ferdinand II and Eschwege

In 1838 Ferdinand II bought the site with his own fortune. Between 1842 and 1854 the New Palace rose around the monastery under Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, a German mineralogist and mining engineer then living in Portugal. After Maria II died in 1853 aged 34, Ferdinand II moved into the old monastery wing himself, later living there with Elise Hensler, the Countess of Edla, whose chalet stands in the park below.

The New Palace holds the state rooms that the Essential route walks through, from the Stag Room to the Triton's Terrace. In 1995 the Cultural Landscape of Sintra, Pena included, entered the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Old Palace versus New Palace, and the two circuits

For a visitor the distinction is practical. The Essential route covers the New Palace state rooms and ends along the terraces. The Complete visit adds the Private Apartments in the monastery wing, rooms such as the Bedroom of Ferdinand II and the Manueline Cloister.

There is no way to buy the Private Apartments on their own. If the labels matter to you, read the comparison on our Pena Palace ticket page before booking, because the Complete visit costs $51.90 (€45) against $23.10 (€20) for Essential.

The Essential route

The highlights named by Parques de Sintra on the Essential route are the Stag Room, the Great Hall, the Smoking Room, the Queen's Terrace, the Courtyard of Arches, the Chapel, the Kitchen, the Triton's Terrace, the Sentry Walk and the Monumental Gate. The Triton's Terrace and the Sentry Walk are the outdoor parts of the route. Your ticket admits you to this circuit at the time printed on it, and not before.

What the Complete visit adds

The Complete visit, sold as the Full Tour at $51.90 (€45), adds the Private Apartments of the old monastery wing. The rooms listed by Parques de Sintra are the Green Room, the Sitting Room, the Queen's Office, the Dressing Room of Queen Amelia and the Tea Room, the Bedroom of Ferdinand II, the Manueline Cloister, the Chambers of King Carlos, and the Dining Room and Pantry. These are the domestic spaces where Ferdinand II actually lived after 1853.

The four palace routes Parques de Sintra sells, compared on adult price and on what each adds to the Essential visit. Prices from the operator's own Pena price list.

Arboretum, camellias and the high cross

The Park of Pena covers 85 hectares and Parques de Sintra calls it the most important arboretum in Portugal. Ferdinand II planted it, introducing Asian camellia collections in the 1840s. Inside the park, the Cruz Alta, the High Cross, marks the highest point of the Serra de Sintra at 528 metres, with views to Lisbon and Cascais in the south and the Atlantic to the west.

Wandering here in the morning is exactly what the operator suggests, since it frees your palace slot for the afternoon.

The Chalet of the Countess of Edla

The Chalet and Garden of the Countess of Edla is included in both Pena tickets, the park-only ticket and the full Essential visit. The chalet opens 09:00 to 17:30 with last admission 17:00. One trap to note: its own entrance gate is closed 12:00 to 14:00, so if you want the chalet inside that window, use the other Pena entrances.

There is a full page on the chalet here.

Two entrances

The Park of Pena has two entrances, the Main Entrance and the Lakes Entrance, by the Valley of the Lakes. The transfer to the palace leaves from the Main Entrance, and Parques de Sintra measures the route from the park entrance to the palace door at 380 metres by the shortest path, which has stairs, or 600 metres step-free. For a palace slot, the Main Entrance is the one to aim for.

The Lakes Entrance suits a morning that starts in the lower gardens.

Half a day is our estimate for the standard Essential visit, and that is not padding. A park worth 85 hectares, a chalet with its own garden, a palace circuit and the climb up and down do not compress well. Plan the park in the morning, eat, take the palace slot in the afternoon, and you have a shape that works.

If you have only a morning

Then take the park-only ticket and enjoy it, or take the half-day tour from Sintra and let the guide carry the timing. Do not buy an early palace slot and assume you can wander into the interior early. Arriving at the palace before your booked time does not get you in, and a missed slot cannot be changed or refunded.

What the time on the ticket is, and is not

As the Parques de Sintra Pena tickets page puts it, the date and time on a Pena ticket are the entry time to the palace interior circuit, not to the park. The park opens from 09:00 and your ticket is valid for one entry into the enclosure. There is no delay tolerance.

Arriving at the palace before the booked time does not get you in, and if you fail to show at the scheduled time the ticket cannot be changed or refunded. The journey from the park entrance to the palace interior entrance takes about 30 minutes, on foot or by the transfer, so leave your park wandering with that margin.

Fast-track and the Meeting Point

According to the operator's skip-the-line page, only 25 entries per palace visiting slot are reserved for fast-track holders, and the fast-track ticket is valid only for its booked slot, again with no delay tolerance. You meet at the Meeting Point next to the Palace of Pena store, where staff walk you into the interior circuit. Parques de Sintra sells fast-track through partner platforms: Blueticket, Headout, Tiqets and GetYourGuide.

The operator publishes no queue time for the standard line, so nobody can honestly promise you a wait length.

Pick the afternoon

Parques de Sintra states the afternoon is, for now, the time of day when the palace has fewer visitors, and suggests using the morning for the park and booking the palace slot for the afternoon. That matches the geography anyway, since the park is best walked in the morning and the 30 minute approach is short before a 14:00 or 15:00 slot.

If plans change

Online tickets can have their date and time changed up to 18:00 the day before the visit, within 365 days of the original date. Tickets bought at ticket offices or machines cannot be changed at all. Refunds apply only to cancelled events or extraordinary closure.

Given that, book online, and compare the routes and slots on our Pena Palace ticket page.

Bus 434 and the car ban

Access to Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle is prohibited to private vehicles, and driving in the historic centre is limited to residents. From the train, the standard route is bus 434, run by Scotturb, from Sintra station up to the Moorish Castle and Pena. Scotturb publishes no readable fare page, so the bus fare is not something we can print.

If you are coming from Lisbon, the train itself is covered on our Lisbon to Sintra page, and the wider bus and transfer picture is on getting around Sintra.

The transfer, park gate to palace door

A return transfer runs every 15 minutes between the park main entrance and the palace. It costs $5.19 (€4.50) for everyone over 6, and you can buy it as an add-on online, at staffed counters, at ticket machines, or on board, though there is no cash on board. Even with the transfer, allow the operator's stated 30 minutes from the park entrance to the palace.

The ramp from the transfer stop to the palace door is about 90 metres with gradients up to 18%, so it is steep in both directions.

Walking up under your own steam

Parques de Sintra marks three signed trails up the hill. The Villa Sassetti Trail starts at Largo Ferreira de Castro and runs 1,850 metres in about 45 minutes, the quickest of the three. The Santa Maria Trail starts at the Info Parques de Sintra point in São Pedro and runs 1,770 metres in about 1 hour, the shortest.

The Seteais Trail starts at the Palace of Seteais and runs 2,410 metres in about 1 hour 30. The trails are described on our Sintra hiking page, and Villa Sassetti, where that trail climbs, is free and open 10:00 to 18:00. The town at the bottom is on Sintra Village.

Accessibility, honestly stated

The palace interior is not accessible to people with reduced mobility because there are stairs throughout the route. In the park, the shortest route from the entrance to the palace is 380 metres but has stairs, while the step-free route is 600 metres. The transfer's wheelchair platforms are temporarily out of service, per the accessibility page.

Disabled visitors get 50% off at Pena and the companion enters free. Folding wheelchairs can be reserved, and a traction device for manual wheelchairs is available by reservation.

• The hour on your ticket is for the palace interior only, and the park is open to you from 09:00 regardless of your slot, so a 15:00 ticket still buys you a full morning. (Parques de Sintra, tickets Palace of Pena page)
• Arriving at the palace door early gains you nothing, since there is no delay tolerance and no early admission. (Parques de Sintra, tickets Palace of Pena page)
• Only 25 entries per palace slot are reserved for fast-track holders, who must report to the Meeting Point next to the Palace of Pena store. (Parques de Sintra, skip-the-line entrance page)
• The Chalet of the Countess of Edla is included in both Pena tickets, but its own gate closes 12:00 to 14:00, so a midday chalet plan fails. (Parques de Sintra, prices page)
• The transfer wheelchair platforms are temporarily out of service and the palace interior has stairs throughout, so the interior is effectively not accessible at present. (Parques de Sintra, accessibility Pena page)

One day in Sintra

Arrive by train, take bus 434 up, walk the park in the morning, hold an afternoon palace slot, then walk to the Moorish Castle on the next ridge before the last admission at 17:30. That is a full day and it leaves Regaleira for another trip, or for the compressed version with the half-day small-group tour from Sintra. The hour-by-hour plan is on our one day in Sintra page.

Two days, no rush

With two days, give Pena its full half day and spend the afternoon at the chalet and the Cruz Alta, then put Regaleira, the National Palace and the historic centre on day two. The split is worked out on our two days in Sintra page.