Rising up from a thickly wooded peak and often enshrouded in swirling mist, Palácio Nacional da Pena is a wacky confection of onion domes, Moorish keyhole gates, writhing stone snakes and crenellated towers in pinks and lemons.
Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, the artist-husband of Queen Maria II, commissioned Prussian architect Ludwig von Eschwege in 1840 to build the Bavarian-Manueline epic (and as a final flourish added an armoured statue of himself, overlooking the palace from a nearby peak).
The kitschy, extravagant interior is equally unusual, brimming with precious Meissen porcelain, Eiffel-designed furniture, trompe l’oeil murals and Dom Carlos’ unfinished nudes of buxom nymphs.
