Nacional Palace of Pena
The colourful tones of the palace, the ultimate example of Romanticism in Portugal and the eternal work of D. Fernando II, the Artist-King, open doors to the imagination of all those who visit, with the infinite shades of green painting the surrounding park create an idyllic scenario, frequently hidden under the veil of the mists that characterise the Sintra Hills.
As if it came out of a fairy tale, this has been the place of dreams for all the generation who have passed here and gazed upon its magnificence.
In 1838, King Fernando II acquired the old Monastery of "Nossa Senhora da Pena" from (Order of Saint Jerome), which had been built on top of the Serra de Sintra in 1511 by the king Manuel I.
Had been unoccupied since 1834, with the extinction of the religious orders.
The monastery consisted of the cloister and dependencies, the chapel, sacristy and bell tower, which today form the northern core of the Pena Palace, or Old Palace.
The Pena Palace stands on a steep rock, which is the second highest point in the Serra de Sintra (only Cruz Alta is above the palace, at 528m above sea level). The Palace is located in the eastern part of Pena Park, which you need to walk through to reach the steep ramp that Baron of Eschwege built to access the castellated building.
The Palace is made up of two wings: the old Manueline convent (Order of Saint Jerome) and the wing built in the 19th century by D. Fernando II. These wings are surrounded by a third architectural structure, which imagines an imaginary castle with patrol paths, battlements and battlements, watchtowers, an access tunnel and even a drawbridge.
During the 1994 restoration, the original colours were restored to the exterior of the Palace: old pink for the old monastery, ochre for the New Palace.
By transforming an old monastery into a castle-like residence, D. Fernando revealed a strong influence from German Romanticism, probably having been inspired by the castles on the banks of the Rhine of Stolzenfels and Rheinstein, as well as the Babelsberg residence in Potsdam. Work on the Pena Palace was completed in the mid-1860s, although interior decoration campaigns were carried out later.
D. Fernando II also ordered the Pena Park to be planted in the areas surrounding the Palace in the style of romantic gardens, with winding paths, pavilions and stone benches along the way, as well as trees and other plants from the four corners of the world, taking advantage of the humid climate of the Sintra mountains and creating from scratch an exotic park with more than five hundred tree species.