SINTRA · PENA PALACE · DECEMBER
December wraps the Sintra ridge in cloud more often than it clears it, and the red and yellow towers of Pena arrive in fragments. At the reference station the month averages a high of 58.8°F (14.9°C), a low of 47.7°F (8.7°C) and 3.94 inches of precipitation, with 9.7 days recording measurable rain.
What the date takes away is light: 9 hours 31 minutes on December 15, gone by 5:17 pm. What it gives is a hill outside its summer conditions, three weeks before Christmas week folds into the calendar, and a park whose camellias belong to the cold months rather than the hot ones.
PENA PALACE AT A GLANCE · DECEMBER
December gives cool, damp, short days at Pena, 58.8°F afternoons and 9.7 wet days, and takes back nearly five degrees of warmth from November: go if mist and winter quiet suit you, shift back four weeks if the afternoons matter.
AVG HIGH 58.8°F · 9.7 WET DAYS · 9H 31M OF DAYLIGHT ON DEC 15
Go for: the Park of Pena in winter light, terraces that turn theatrical when cloud sits on the ridge, and a monument hill in its quiet half of the year.
Think twice before: pinning the visit to one fixed date. Rain falls on about 9.7 days of the month, and 3.5 of those bring 0.39 inch or more.
Normals: IPMA station 579, 1991-2020 · Daylight: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- Pena Palace December weather58.8°F highs, 47.7°F lows, 3.94 inches
- How cold it gets on the hillThe 11.1°F day-night gap
- December crowds, booking and tourist taxLow season, and the figures we could not verify
- Things to do at Pena Palace in DecemberThe park, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla, the Moorish Castle
- Two days in Sintra in DecemberAn hour-by-hour plan around a 5:17 pm sunset
- December vs November and JanuaryAll three months in figures
- Is December a good time to visit Pena Palace?Our verdict, and who should shift the date
The December question is what the date does to the visit. Everything that holds all year, the routes up the hill and the rest of the palaces, lives in our Sintra guide, and the twelve-month view sits in the best-time verdict for Portugal.
Pena Palace weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days
| December at Pena Palace (1991-2020) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Average high | 58.8°F (14.9°C) |
| Average low | 47.7°F (8.7°C) |
| Precipitation | 3.94 in |
| Days with 0.04 in (1 mm) or more | 9.7 |
| Days with 0.39 in (10 mm) or more | 3.5 |
| Daylight on December 15 | 9h 31m |
| Sunrise / sunset, December 15 | 7:46 am / 5:17 pm |
Every figure here comes from one real thermometer: IPMA’s station 579, Lisboa Gago Coutinho, at 103.9 m, on the 1991-2020 normals. December there averages 58.8°F by day and 47.7°F at night, with 3.94 inches of precipitation. That station stands 25 km from the palace and roughly 400 m lower, while Pena sits in the cloud the Sintra hill makes. Treat the numbers as a ceiling for warmth and a floor for rain: the hilltop runs colder, wetter and mistier than the reading.
An average December records 9.7 days with at least 0.04 inch (1 mm), so roughly one day in three brings something measurable, and 3.5 of those days deliver 0.39 inch (10 mm) or more. Those are IPMA’s own thresholds, not the 0.10-inch bar behind American rain-day tables, so the two counts are not interchangeable. Read it as two-thirds of the month dry at the station, plus about three afternoons nobody would choose to spend on an open terrace.
Between the average high and the average low there are 11.1°F. Days do not warm up much, so what you leave in at breakfast is roughly what you wear at three o’clock. Pack a waterproof shell rather than an umbrella, since the terraces catch the wind, one warm layer under it, and shoes with grip: the park paths and the palace ramps are stone, and 9.7 wet days leave them slick. Our packing guide has the rest of the list.
December 15 brings 9 hours 31 minutes of daylight, sunrise at 7:46 am and sunset at 5:17 pm in local time, Portugal keeping UTC through the winter. On a ridge holding cloud, the last usable light on the terraces goes earlier than the sunset hour. Arrive at eleven and you have about five hours for a palace with a large park attached, which is why the early train out of Lisbon earns its ticket in this month.
How warm is Pena Palace in December?
The month’s averages run 58.8°F at the warmest hour and 47.7°F at the coldest, a spread of 11.1°F across a normal day. Set beside the neighbors, that afternoon figure is 4.9°F below November’s 63.7°F and 0.9°F above January’s 57.9°F. The whole winter, in other words, lives inside a six-degree band at its warmest.
At 7:46 am the hill sits near its low: fleece, hat, shell already on. By early afternoon a clear 58.8°F feels like shirtsleeves in direct sun and a jacket the moment you step into the shadow of a tower. Because the station undercuts the summit by some 400 m of altitude, add one layer beyond what a Lisbon forecast suggests, and expect the wind on the west-facing terraces to do the rest.
We could not verify a count of frost nights at station 579, so we give no number. A mean low of 47.7°F sits well clear of freezing, though the palace stands far above the thermometer and night air follows altitude down. We also found no sea-surface series for the Sintra coast, so we give no water temperature and make no swimming call.
How busy is Pena Palace in December? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
December belongs to the winter half of the calendar: the first three weeks carry no school break, and the final stretch folds in Christmas week and New Year. We found no month-by-month visitor count for the palace, so we name no busiest month and no quietest one. The datable part is the weather behind demand, 9.7 wet days and 9 hours 31 minutes of light on the 15th, and a hill that asks visitors to stand outdoors in it.
On booking, we have to be straight: we could not verify a ticket price, a timed-entry rule or a December opening schedule for Pena, so we quote none and send you to the monument’s own site before you fix a date. What the month argues for is a flexible one. With rain on about a third of December days, a refundable night in Sintra and a plan that can slide by 24 hours beat any queue tactic.
We could not verify Sintra’s municipal tourist tax, neither its rate nor the months it applies, so we give no per-night figure. Our Portugal trip-cost guide handles the budget layer. Two nights on the hill rather than a day trip changes the December arithmetic more than any surcharge, because it buys back the first hour of a 9h 31m day.
The upgrade that genuinely changes this month is the ride up. The road to the palace gate climbs the Serra, and on the 3.5 days that bring 0.39 inch or more, that climb is the part of the visit people remember badly. A taxi, or the car covered in our rental guide, turns it into a dry approach and hands the saved daylight back to the park.
Things to do in Pena Palace in December
Two sights belong to the cold months. The first is the mist, with cloud parked on the ridge and the palace appearing one turret at a time instead of as a single postcard. The second follows a front, when the air is scrubbed and the high paths of the park see all the way to the Atlantic. Neither is bookable, and 9.7 wet days give December decent odds on both.
Inside the gate, the Park of Pena holds the Chalet of the Countess of Edla, the Valley of the Lakes, the Queen’s Fern Valley and the High Cross at the top of the hill. Along the same ridge run the walls of the Moorish Castle, and down in town the National Palace and Quinta da Regaleira offer indoor rooms. We could not verify December hours, closing days or admission prices for any of them, so we quote none: take each from the monument itself.
Nothing about the stone changes with the calendar. The air around it does: November averages 63.7°F in the afternoon against December’s 58.8°F, and that near five-degree drop is the entire difference on a terrace with Atlantic wind crossing it. The camellias come into flower in the cold weeks, the tree ferns keep their green through the wet ones, and paths that read as pleasantly shaded in summer go properly dark under low cloud.
We could not verify a free-admission date at Pena in December, so we name none. What costs nothing in any month is the walking: the lanes of Sintra town and the viewpoints along the road up the hill. On a 9h 31m day, give those the middle hours and keep ticketed interiors for the end, when the light on the ridge has already gone.
Pena Palace in December: a two-day itinerary
Day one starts on the early side of the morning, with sunrise at 7:46 am and every hour of a short day worth more than it is in June. Give the first stretch to the park while the mist is still moving: the Valley of the Lakes, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla, then the climb to the High Cross. Take the palace interiors through the middle of the day, lunch down in town, and come back up for the last light, which is gone by 5:17 pm.
Day two takes the ridge: the Moorish Castle walls first, then Quinta da Regaleira or the National Palace in town. If a front arrives, invert the order, putting interiors under the heavy hours and the park in the afternoon gap, and accept that on roughly three December days the terrace view is a wall of cloud whatever you do. A soaked morning is a rescheduled one when you sleep in Sintra, and a longer commute when you come from Lisbon (our getting-around guide covers the connection).
Pena Palace in December vs November and January
| Normal (1991-2020) | November | December | January |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 63.7°F | 58.8°F | 57.9°F |
| Average low | 52.2°F | 47.7°F | 46.0°F |
| Precipitation | 4.51 in | 3.94 in | 3.78 in |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 9.3 | 9.7 | 9.9 |
Across the three months the thermometer does most of its falling before December arrives. November averages 63.7°F by day and 52.2°F at night, December 58.8°F and 47.7°F, January 57.9°F and 46.0°F. Rain totals run the other way, heaviest in November at 4.51 inches, then 3.94 and 3.78, while the wet-day count stays almost flat at 9.3, 9.7 and 9.9. We found no sea-surface series for this coast, so the comparison stops at air and rain.
Shift four weeks back and you gain 4.9°F of afternoon warmth and a longer day, paying for it with the wettest total of the three, 4.51 inches. Shift four weeks forward and January costs you 0.9°F on the high and 1.7°F on the low in exchange for 0.16 inch less rain and the first minutes of daylight coming back. Read November alongside it: the three months differ by 5.8°F at their warmest hour.
Is December a good time to visit Pena Palace?
Yes for travelers who want the Sintra hill without its summer conditions, who pack for a 47.7°F morning and treat the forecast as a moving target rather than a promise. No for anyone with one fixed day and a photograph in mind: on a ridge that manufactures its own cloud, a single December date is a coin flip, and the terrace view is the thing it flips for.
If that describes the trip, November is the move: 63.7°F afternoons, a longer day, the same hill, at the cost of 4.51 inches of rain against December’s 3.94. January answers no December objection, running cooler at both ends and recording 9.9 wet days, the highest count of the three.
What December alone offers is a complete visit inside ordinary waking hours, sunrise at 7:46 am and sunset at 5:17 pm, both ends of the day available without setting an alarm you resent.
The last word
Book two nights in Sintra instead of one train ticket, and December stops riding on a single morning. One figure worth carrying up the hill: the gap between day and night is narrower now, 11.1°F, than in November (11.5°F) or January (11.9°F), so the layer that gets you through 7:46 am is the same one that gets you through the dark at 5:17 pm.
Sources & data for this guide
- December normals (high 58.8°F, low 47.7°F, 3.94 in) and rain-day counts (9.7 at 1 mm, 3.5 at 10 mm) · IPMA, normais climatologicas 1991-2020, station 579 Lisboa Gago Coutinho, 103.9 m · checked Sep 24, 2026
- November and January normals used in the comparison · same IPMA station, same 1991-2020 period · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight of 9h 31m, sunrise 07:46 and sunset 17:17 UTC on December 15, converted to local time · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Station caveat: the thermometer stands 25 km from Pena and roughly 400 m lower, and the Sintra hill runs colder, wetter and mistier · IPMA station metadata · checked Sep 24, 2026
- We could not verify Pena’s ticket prices, opening hours, closing days or timed-entry rules for December, and we found no visitor-count series, no Sintra lodging-tax rate and no sea-surface temperature for the coast, so we quote none of them.