Pena Palace in Sintra mountains | Portugal

​Be prepared to feel like you’re in a Barbie’s castle, when you visit Pena Palace in Sintra. To start with, its features include very intense colours. The trip there, if you imagine, is like spending a day in a completely different world, as if you are literally enjoying a good dream.

The Pena Palace was built by a German architect. The palace is said to be inspired King Ludwig II’s German castle, Neuschwanstein, which inspired Walt Disney’s castle at Disneyland. Both castles have been designed in a 19^th Century Romantism style. The Pena Palace was originally painted with the intense colours that you can see – red, yellow, blue and green. In time though, the paint had become pale and no longer mirrored its original glow.  In 1996, the Palace was restored and included a repainting of the walls. As some sources would say, the more conservative locals from Sintra were, the more sceptical they would also be about the “new” image of the castle.

We couldn’t agree with them. We found the fairy-tale glow of the castle, which contrasted the evergreen hills of Serra da Sintra, quite unique. Each part of it had different paint and almost gave an impression of a separate building, taken out of different worlds, but with its own imaginative ornaments. Visiting each part was like discovering a new place.

Fun fact:  The red tower from Pena Castle looks like the Belem Tower.