At the Monserrate Palace, in the town of Sintra , northwest of Lisbon, Portugal

 “Wet or fine, the air of Portugal has a natural happiness in it, and the people of the country should be as happy and prosperous as any people in the world.”

-- H.G. Wells
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(in western Portugal) The town of Sintra (also spelled Cintra), located about 15 miles (24 km) west-northwest of Lisbon, includes three parishes of Lisbon (Santa Maria e São Miguel, São Martinho, and São Pedro de Pennaferrim) and is within the Sintra municipality. Situated on the northern slope of the Sintra Mountains, this is an area of former royal summer residence., Sintra possesses a beauty that was celebrated by Lord Byron in his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and English author Robert Southey referred to Sintra as “the most blessed spot on the whole inhabitable globe.” (Sintra was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995.)

+ On one of the mountain peaks is the Pena Palace, a 19th-century castle, partly an adaptation of a 16th-century monastery and partly an imitation of a medieval fortress, which was built for Queen Maria II by her German consort, Ferdinand II. On the grounds of the castle, Ferdinand created the Parque da Pena, a series of gardens and walking paths that incorporated more than 2,000 species of domestic and non-native plants. Loosely adopting the conventions established by the English garden movement in the 18th century, the park incorporates natural elements throughout, adapting to the area’s rugged terrain rather than reshaping it. On another peak is Castle dos Mouros, which was built by the Moors in the 8th and 9th centuries. The 15th-century royal palace, a mixture of Moorish and debased Gothic architecture, is in the Old-Town section of Sintra. The palace served as a refuge for the royal family during the summer months, when Lisbon could become uncomfortably hot, and during times of plague. Although damaged in the earthquake of 1755, the palace was painstakingly restored, and in the 21st century more than 400,000 tourists visited it each year. These buildings and the nearby Monserrate Palace and its park are among the best examples of landscape gardening on the Iberian Peninsula.

+ With its rippling mountains, dewy forests thick with ferns and lichen, exotic gardens, and glittering palaces, Sintra is like a page torn from a fairy tale. Sintra-Vila (the town's center), is dotted with pastel-hued manors folded into luxuriant hills that roll down to the deep-blue Atlantic. Celts worshipped their moon god here, the Moors built a precipitous castle, and 18th-century Portuguese royals swanned around its dreamy gardens.

+ One of the wealthiest municipalities in both Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula as a whole, Sintra is home to one of the largest foreign expatriate communities along the Portuguese Riviera, and consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in Portugal.

+ Tucked away in the mountains of Sintra is the Monserrate Palace (shown here), which is home to one of the most extensive botanic gardens in Portugal and Europe: