Things to do in Peniche

No. 2 of Family-friendly Attractions in Portugal

Obidos Village

Obidos Village is located in the central west coast region of Portugal, approx. 80 km from Lisbon, and is a village known for its medieval style and traditional Portuguese architecture. Its core area is surrounded by well-preserved medieval city walls, with a castle situated on high ground. White houses are arranged along narrow cobblestone streets, with exterior walls often decorated in blue or yellow, and windowsills adorned with flowers and vines, creating a distinct rural view. Within the village, you can also visit places such as the Church of Saint Mary, the Church of Saint Peter, and the Municipal Museum. The city wall walkway offers views of the village rooftops, surrounding fields, and distant hills.

Dino Parque Lourinha

Dino Parque Lourinha is Europe's largest open-air dinosaur theme park, located in the Abelheira district, about a 1.5-hour drive from Lisbon. Spanning approximately 10 hectares, the park features six themed trails showcasing dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures from the late Paleozoic to the end of the Cretaceous. Dino Parque boasts approximately 200 life-size dinosaur models, including Plateosaurus, one of Europe's oldest dinosaurs. Visitors can also explore exhibits showcasing dinosaur fossils, fossilized eggs, and other paleontological remains. The park also features interactive areas suitable for families and school groups, offering activities such as fossil excavation and restoration to spark children's interest in paleontology. Visitors can also relax and shop at the park's restaurants and shops.

Cabo Carvoeiro Lighthouse

Berlengas Nature Reserve

Fort of Peniche

The building is located in Peniche, built approx. in1557and1558, and subsequently underwent multiple renovations. Its defensive walls are divided into upper and lower sections and are quite spectacular.

Baleal Beach

BerlengaTrip

No. 1 of Best Things to Do in Portugal

Pena Park

Pena Park is a vast royal woodland garden that embraces the Pena Palace, spreading across the heights of the Sintra hills. Created in the mid-nineteenth century by King Ferdinand II of Portugal alongside the palace, it covers more than two hundred hectares of rolling terrain and deep forest. Paths crisscross the grounds like a maze, linking stone bridges, grottoes, fountains, and trellised pavilions; combined with the mist that often hangs over the hills, wandering here feels much like stepping into a fairy-tale forest. Looking down from one side of the palace, the whole expanse of greenery spreads across the slopes like a sea, with the red-and-yellow palace towers as the focal point of the scene. The garden has a distinctly Romantic character: the king ordered trees brought in from distant continents, and North American redwoods, Chinese ginkgos, Japanese cedars, and magnolias can all be seen here. In the ravine known as the "Queen's Fern Garden," groves of tree ferns from Australia and New Zealand grow along the stream in dense green profusion. On the lakes of the Lake Valley stand duck houses shaped like castles, one of them modeled after the Moorish Castle; in the woods stands a knight-like "Warrior Statue" by the sculptor Rusconi; and on the western side of the park, the "Countess's Chalet" is a Swiss mountain chalet style building, its exterior painted with wood-grain patterns and trimmed with cork, surrounded by camellias and azaleas and set among giant granite boulders—a retreat the king built for his second wife, a former opera singer. Visiting tips: the park is large, with many slopes and dense branching paths, so wear comfortable shoes and allow most of a day to stroll at leisure; don't just rush back and forth to the palace—follow the paths deeper into the woods, where the Lake Valley, the Fern Garden, and the Countess's Chalet are often quieter and more rewarding to explore, and good for photos too; when the camellias bloom in winter, the park's colors are especially rich.

No. 1 of Night Attractions in Portugal

National Palace of Pena

The National Palace of Pena is a royal retreat whose dazzling, eccentric, and ornate silhouette looks like a pleasure-palace castle. The palace itself is a medley of architectural styles, combining Gothic, Renaissance, Moorish, and Manueline (the style of the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal) elements, and it was the brainchild of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Queen Maria II of Portugal in the nineteenth century. It is not only a Portuguese national monument but also one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal, standing on a hilltop in the parish of São Pedro de Penaferrim in the town of Sintra near Lisbon, and on clear days it is clearly visible from the city of Lisbon itself. In 1995, it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site as part of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra. It is now frequently used for state functions by the Portuguese president and other government officials. In the Middle Ages, this site was merely a small chapel of Our Lady. In 1493, King John II and his wife visited, and his successor, Manuel I, built a monastery, which fell into ruins after the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755; Ferdinand II bought the ruins and the surrounding hillside and commissioned the German engineer Eschwege to design a building blending Gothic, Manueline, Moorish, and Renaissance elements, with construction beginning in 1842 and completed around 1854, making it one of the representative works of European Romantic palace architecture.

Praia de Peniche de Cima