Royal castle Pena Palace in Sintra.

Sintra, also spelled Cintra, town, western Portugal. It is located about 15 miles (24 km) west-northwest of Lisbon. The town constitutes three parishes of Lisbon and is within the much larger Sintra concelho.

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 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.

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