To avoid the hoards of tourists in Sintra, we bought tickets ahead of time for the earliest entry into the Pena Palace at 9:30am. We got a Bolt rideshare, which was more efficient for the four of us, rather than buses and trains. The driver took us right up to the small parking lot next to the entrance of the palace grounds. We had expected to walk up from the village. There was a short line at the gate to the palace grounds, nothing like the line at 11:30am when we left the palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Pena Palace, with its bright walls of orange, red, and yellow, looks like a fairytale. Walking the ramparts gives wonderful views of the forests on the Sintra hills, the Moorish castle on a nearby hilltop, and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Inside, you snake along through the beautiful rooms, staying in line with the crowd, although the crowds weren’t bad because of our early start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n