Sights of Portugal: the ethereal Pena’s Natural Park, Sintra

There is a lot more to Sintra than its palaces and castles. One even has the feeling that land has indeed something supernatural to it, but I’d say it’s just that Nature is so abundant, so healthy, so green, that you feel you’re walking in a magical land, that was indeed gifted with fertility and good weather.

There are so many trails you can do in Sintra, but be prepared – it’s all through uneven and hilly grounds. It is a lot of physical effort, but the sights are definitely worth it. When visiting Sintra, Hans Christian Andersen wrote:

“The way up to the top of the hill is a garden where nature and art complement each other wonderfully. It’s the most beautiful walk imaginable“
Hans Christian Andersen

Trees old as time, reaching the skies with their thick, strong trunks, emerging us in refreshing shade, cleaning the air as they bread, a reminder of how small we all. Trees that have lived our lifetime a hundred times, or more. How many stories could they tell, or would it even matter to them?

Even the ferns are huge and strong, almost as trees. But again, Almeida Garrett, a Portuguese poet responsible for introducing Romanticism in Portuguese artistic sphere, called Sintra, a Throne of Thriving Spring. A Spring that never ends, but goes on and on, preserving its history and its very secret knowledge that us humans will never even grasp.

Nature just evolves and grow so apparently unperturbed, it looks no man had ever stepped in there and, somehow, try to transform it to serve its own ideals.

Thankfully, man has been kind of Nature and it managed to create art that somehow completes the masterpieces naturally created.

Getting lost in a place like this is almost compulsory. There are defined trails, but I must say the signalisation isn’t the best. GPS could be a saver if you’re short of time and can’t really afford to get lost. But we ended up finding the most beautiful things by following our gut. I still wished I had had more time to explore the park a bit better, but, as with the Castle of Mouros, I guess it would have to be another time.