(Full) On day 2 of our stay, we went to the Palacio Nacional da Pena (National Palace of Pena) in Sintra-Cascais Natural Park. This is a popular tourist site so here are a few tips I've gathered:
1 - Always purchase tickets in advance (online). It is a timed entry, and they expect you to arrive on time.
2 - Parking becomes scarce as you get closer to the castle. You can park a bit farther down and take a tuk-tuk (aka motorcycle cab) or expect a good hike. We did take a risk with parking and went with the closest one, which we ended up getting very lucky. Even from there, there was a 20-30 minute easy to moderate hike.
3 - It is NOT stroller-friendly. Plan to use your baby carrier if your child is not going to walk a lot. As usual, Ergobaby 360 carrier was my life savior.
4 - Expect to walk a lot (aka wear comfortable shoes) and a rain jacket or warm sweater. Weather can be unpredictable.
5 - We came here during the off-season and still felt pretty busy/crowded by the afternoon (ours was 11:30am entry).
6 - There is a cafe/restaurant in the castle if you do get hungry.
Now that I got the boring stuff out of the way, here is a photo dump of this beautiful castle. The heavy mist made the whole experience feel more magical although it did make it a little more difficult to see the outside details. Huge photo credit to my brother-in-law, Nan, while Z and I were wrangling our children. Zoe was probably the most excited person in the group - she wanted to embrace her love for princesses and castle living. We even had some locals refer her to as a princess, so she was over the moon.
The inside tour is a one-way route and each room has security (camera or person) monitoring for activities. Personal photography is allowed but use caution on flash.
The outside tour gives you more freedom to check out the castle at your own pace. My favorite was the "wall walk" where you walk the castle perimeter. If you afraid of height like I am, it might give you some chills, but I can assure you every path was very safe.
The nature walk/garden surrounding the castle was absolutely breathtaking. We would have spent more time walking around, but we had to cut this portion short because the girls were getting very tired and angry.
For late lunch, we went to Taj Palace Sintra (Indian cuisine) and highly recommend it! All the curry was delicious and well-portioned.
Thank you for following our travels!
