In September, we went, with a group of friends to Portugal and when we were there, we visited a few of the most glorious palaces you could imagine. Sintra is a fairytale of a place, with pink and yellow palaces nestled in the trees near the tops of the mountains and other beautiful buildings scattered around the town and in the green countryside.

The Pena Palace is the wedding cake style palace in a number of the photos below – it’s painted with vivid colours and is high above the town, overlooking everyone and from the top, you can see miles and miles around – all the way to the sea.

Pena Palace

Pena Palace

Pena Palace

In some places, the building is covered in beautiful hand-painted tiles and carved stone embellishments and figurines, it’s slightly gothic in style – around the windows and doors but the bright colours alleviate any gloom.

Battle tiles!

Some of the tile work is amazing, both hand-painted and incredibly detailed. It must have taken people huge amounts of time to craft these.

Well turned kingly legs

In the chapel at the Pena Palace are some totally glorious stained glass windows featuring kings, queens and other religious figures. The colours are vivid and bright and the detail work is incredible.

This painting below however made me smirk a bit. I can’t remember who it was but the outfit he’s wearing most certainly looks like a slinky item of nightwear…

They wore slinky nighties in the 1400s as well…

I really recommend Sintra for a few days of touristing, it’s very easy to get there from Lisbon – just less than an hour on the train. And there are endless sightseeing buses which help as it’s a very steep climb up to some of the palaces. The town itself is charming and full of beautiful buildings, even if some of them are derelict. Restaurants are plentiful and the curio shops stock some very innovative and lovely items.