Pena Palace is a 19th-century palace built over a ruined monastery in the Sintra Mountains, now a museum.
Last reviewed 4 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 700–1979
The short answer
Pena Palace in Sintra began as a monastery founded by King Manuel I in 1503, was left in ruins by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and was rebuilt from 1838 by King Ferdinand II into the eccentric Romantic palace that now stands on the hilltop, opened as a national museum since 1910.
Sintra, Palácio da Pena from Cruz Alta The Pena National Palace is a Romanticist palace in the municipality of Sintra, Portugal. The palace's history started in the Middle Ages when a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena was built on the to — 1995 · Arian Zwegers from Brussels, Belgium · CC BY 2.0
1503 to 1834
A monastery rises, falls, and waits in ruin
Palácio Nacional da Pena, known locally as Pena Palace, is a mountaintop palace near Sintra, now run as a museum. Its older core began as a monastery. In 1503, King Manuel I of Portugal ordered a convent built on this hilltop, where a chapel to Our Lady of Pena already stood. Manuel I gave it to the Hieronymite monks. A wooden structure went up first, replaced by 1511 with stone. For over three centuries the monastery held no more than eighteen monks at a time. In 1532, King João III and Queen Catarina added a jasper and alabaster altarpiece, fulfilling a vow made at the birth of their son. The monastery took a direct hit from lightning in the 18th century, but the worse blow came in 1755. The Lisbon earthquake collapsed the main church and left the rest in ruins. Portugal dissolved its religious orders in 1834, and the broken monastery sat empty for years after that.
In 1838, King consort Ferdinand II of Portugal bought the ruins along with the surrounding land, using his own fortune. Ferdinand kept the monastery's surviving chapel and cloister and built an entirely new palace around and above them. The German engineer Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege led the design, mixing Gothic, Moorish, and Manueline styles into one eccentric building. Ferdinand had the old monastery section painted red and the new wing painted yellow, so the two halves of its history stayed visible on the outside. Construction ran through the 1840s and into the 1850s, though Ferdinand kept adding towers and rooms for years afterward. His wife, Queen Maria II of Portugal, died in 1853 at age 34. Ferdinand later lived there with his second wife, the former opera singer Elise Hensler, who became Countess of Edla.
1890 to 1910
The royal family's last summers ended in exile
By the 1890s, King Carlos I of Portugal and Queen Amélia of Orléans were using Pena Palace as their summer home. In 1908, assassins shot and killed Carlos in Lisbon. His son became King Manuel II of Portugal and kept rooms in the palace's Turret Tower. Amélia often came to see him there. When revolt broke out in October 1910, Amélia stayed at Pena Palace and watched the fighting in Lisbon from its terraces. She spent her last night in Portugal under this roof before leaving for exile. Within days, the monarchy fell and the royal family never returned.
1910 to now
A museum keeps the royal rooms as they were left
The new republic made Pena Palace a national monument and opened it as a museum that same year. Decades passed, and the red and yellow paint on its towers faded to a uniform gray. In 1994, workers restored the original colors that Ferdinand had chosen, so the old monastery wing shows red again and the newer palace wing shows yellow. UNESCO named Pena Palace part of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra in 1995, protecting it alongside the nearby Castelo dos Mouros and other hilltop sites. In 2007, Portuguese voters chose it as one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal.
Inside, the rooms still hold furniture and decoration from the day the royal family left in 1910, including stuccoed ceilings and walls painted to look like marble. The Manueline chapel and cloister that survived the 1755 earthquake remain inside the palace, built into the same stone as the monks' old chapter house and refectory. Ferdinand's 200-hectare park surrounds the building, laid out with winding paths, a High Cross, a Temple of Columns, and a grotto built for a monk's solitary retreat. The palace draws around 1.5 million visitors a year, making it the most visited monument in Portugal.
Visitors today walk through a red-and-yellow palace that still wraps around a five-century-old monastery chapel.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
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Deep time
The rock beneath Sintra's hills dates to the Jurassic, roughly 145 to 201 million years ago, laid down as limestone, marl and sandstone long before any castle or palace stood on it.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Macrostrat
Medieval
8th century onward
The Castle of the Moors, an eighth-century hilltop fortification, rises about 500 meters south of the palace and was bought by Ferdinand II along with the monastery ruins in 1838.
In 1348 the Black Death struck Sintra, and documents from 1350 record the Igreja de São Martinho overwhelmed with burials from the dead, about a kilometer from here.
King Manuel I ordered a monastery built here in 1503 after reports of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, handing it to the Hieronymite order, who kept at most eighteen monks on this hilltop for three centuries.
The Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1, 1755 collapsed the monastery's main church and left the whole complex in ruins, where it stood untouched for decades until Ferdinand arrived.
In 1838 King Ferdinand II bought the earthquake-wrecked Hieronymite monastery on this hilltop and spent the next two decades turning it into the Pena Palace, where you now stand.
João Cristino da Silva painted "The Estrada da Pena (Road to Pena) in the Sintra Mountains" in 1855, capturing the newly built palace and its approach road not long after construction finished.
After King Carlos I was assassinated in Lisbon in 1908, his son Manuel II became king and spent much of his short reign here, housed in the palace's Turret Tower.
Queen Amélia waited out the 1910 republican revolt at Pena Palace, watching the fighting in Lisbon from its terraces before spending her last night in Portugal here on October 4-5.
Once the republic replaced the monarchy in 1910, the palace was classified a National Monument and opened as a museum, which it has remained ever since.
The South African poet Roy Campbell and the cartographer John George Bartholomew are both buried at São Pedro de Penaferrim Cemetery, about two kilometers from the palace.
A monastery stood on the site, founded in 1503 by King Manuel I for the Hieronymite monks after reports of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, with a wooden structure replaced by stone by 1511.
What happened at Pena Palace in 1755?
The Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1, 1755 collapsed the monastery's main church and left the rest of the complex in ruins, which stood untouched until King Ferdinand II bought the site in 1838.
Who built Pena Palace?
King consort Ferdinand II of Portugal bought the ruined monastery and surrounding land in 1838 with his own fortune and had the German engineer Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege design a new palace mixing Gothic, Moorish, and Manueline styles around the surviving monastic core.
Why is Pena Palace painted red and yellow?
Ferdinand II had the old monastery section painted red and the new wing painted yellow so the two periods of construction remained visible from outside; the colours faded to gray over the decades and were restored in 1994.
What happened to the royal family who lived at Pena Palace?
Queen Amélia spent her last night in Portugal at Pena Palace in October 1910, watching the fighting of the republican revolt in Lisbon from its terraces, after which the monarchy fell and the royal family never returned.
Is Pena Palace open to visitors today?
Yes, it has operated as a museum since the republic declared it a national monument in 1910, and it now draws around 1.5 million visitors a year, making it the most visited monument in Portugal.
