This Month’s Moment: National Palace of Pena

On the second week of every month, myself and Tacha will share a recent experience that we have found inspiring. Maybe some of our expeditions will inspire a few fun activities you could do with your friends!

With summer being in full swing there have been a couple of highlights this month that I could share, but the penultimate moment had to be visiting the National Palace of Pena in Sintra, Portugal. There are a few castles to see in the city and they all look like fairytale illustrations from books your parents may have read to you as a child. I’m talking about castles that are perfectly perched on the top of a hill, surrounded by huge rock boulders, and long winding roads that lead to the entrance.

I was especially dumbfounded to hear the National Palace of Pena is dedicated to ‘Our Lady of Pena’. For a brief moment, I thought that maybe this flamboyant architectural structure was the predominant work of a woman in 12th century Europe, which would have been amazing! I was unfortunately wrong. ‘Our Lady of Pena’ is a reference to those ginormous boulders the castle was built on - that's right, they’re so huge they’ve received an official nickname and it's stuck since the 12th century.

It was interesting to delve into the history of this Palace, but during our actual visit the focus was really more on the amount of photo-friendly locations there were to take advantage of! We vogued next to the brightly coloured Palace walls and tried to capture the stunning beauty of the panoramic views, although sometimes a photo can never do these things justice.

If we weren't taking photos, we were channelling our inner royalty as we talked about refurbishments to the telephone room and the party potential of the reception room.

We left the castle feeling like queens, and if you’re ever in the region I would absolutely recommend the visit. Even if you’re not interested in the history it’s impossible to not find yourself in awe of the attention to detail that’s gone into the architecture, and it's a great place to take a few beautiful photos with a friend.

We’re really excited to share these experiences with you and I hope you will do the same for us. Let us know about a place or something that’s happened to you recently that brought you closer to a friend.

Alexa

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