At Pena Palace, in the town of Sintra, in the Greater Lisbon region of Portugal

 “Any Portuguese town looks like bride’s finery -- something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

-- Mary McCarthy
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(in the Greater Lisbon region of Portugal on the Portuguese Riviera) Long the home of Portugal’s monarchs, Sintra is a town of marvelous historic mansions, set against the backdrop of lush hills. Sintra’s many castles include the Palácio Nacional de Sintra (a main abode of Portuguese royalty until the early 20th century), the hilltop Palácio da Pena, Quinta de Regaleira (incorporating several architectural styles and with gorgeous surrounding gardens), the Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle), and the Palácio de Monserrate.

+ One of the most urbanized and densely populated municipalities of Portugal, Sintra is a major tourist destination, famed not only for its historic palaces and castles, but also for its scenic beaches, parks, and gardens. The area includes the Sintra-Cascais Nature Park through which the Sintra Mountains run. The historic center of the Vila de Sintra is famous for its 19th-century Romanticist architecture, which resulted in the classification of the town as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
+ 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. Its center, Sintra-Vila, is dotted with pastel-hued manors folded into luxuriant hills that roll down to the deep-blue Atlantic.

+ Sintra is located about 15 miles (24 km) west-northwest of Lisbon. The town constitutes three parishes of Lisbon (Santa Maria e São Miguel, São Martinho, and São Pedro de Pennaferrim) and is within the much larger Sintra municipality. Sintra possesses a beauty that was celebrated by Lord Byron in his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and the English author Robert Southey referred to Sintra as “the most blessed spot on the whole inhabitable globe.”

+ On one of the mountain peaks is the Pena Palace (shown here), a 19th-century castle that is 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 young German consort, Ferdinand II. On the extensive 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 nonnative plants. 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. These buildings and the nearby Monserrate Palace and its park are among the best examples of landscape gardening on the Iberian Peninsula.

+ Two major conventions were negotiated in Sintra, one in 1509 between Portugal and Castile concerning voyages of exploration and another in 1808 by which the British and Portuguese allowed the defeated French army to return home during the Peninsular War (1808–14).