Pena Palace Tickets & Tours

Pena Palace is the one image everyone carries home from Sintra: the Pena National Palace, a riot of red and yellow towers on a forested peak, looking less like a real castle than something out of a storybook. It sits inside a huge park of exotic trees and hidden paths, and the Park and National Palace of Pena together fill most of a good half day.

Most people start with the question of tickets. Pena Palace tickets cover the park and the palace interior, and in high season they sell out, so booking online ahead of time is the difference between walking straight in and queuing at the gate. Skip-the-line entry is the detail to look for. From there you choose how much help you want: a guided tour adds the royal history and the architectural backstory as you go, while a tickets-only option simply gets you inside to explore the staterooms and terraces at your own pace. The climb from the park gate up to the palace is steep, so a tour with the shuttle included saves your legs.

Inside Pena Palace you get the over-decorated royal apartments, the cloister of the old monastery it was built around, and wraparound views from the ramparts across the Sintra hills to the Atlantic. Go first thing in the morning to beat the crowds and the midday haze. Many visitors fold the palace into a fuller Sintra day with Quinta da Regaleira and the Moorish Castle nearby, or reach it on a day trip from Lisbon.

39 Pena Palace tours and tickets from EUR 22. Skip-the-line entry, guided and self-guided, palace and park, with free cancellation on most - easy to book online.