PENA PALACE · JUNE · IPMA 1991-2020
On June 15 the sun comes up over Sintra’s hill at 6:09 a.m. local time and goes down at 9:04 p.m., giving 14 hours and 55 minutes of daylight to a palace that spends much of the spring wrapped in its own cloud. June is the month the mist loses ground: 0.53 inch of rain across the whole month, against 2.00 inches in May.
What the month takes back is elbow room and cool air. Afternoons average 79.0°F, six degrees up on May, and the Portuguese summer season is underway. Most visitors will take that trade, and the normals below explain why, with one caveat about where the nearest official thermometer actually stands.
JUNE AT A GLANCE · PENA PALACE
June buys the driest long days of late spring at Pena: 79.0°F afternoons, half an inch of rain across the month and light on the hill until 9 p.m., with the summer crowd already arriving.
HIGH 79.0°F · 2.0 RAIN DAYS · 14 H 55 MIN OF DAYLIGHT ON JUNE 15
Go for: long dry days on an exposed hilltop, 0.53 inch of rain against May’s 2.00, and three hours of soft light after the terraces empty.
Think twice before: treating these figures as Pena’s own. The thermometer sits about 25 km away and some 400 m lower, and the Sintra hill makes its own colder, wetter, mistier weather.
Normals: IPMA station 579, Lisboa Gago Coutinho · Sun times: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- Pena Palace weather in June79.0°F days, 0.53 inch of rain, 2.0 wet days
- How cool the mornings get61.7°F at night, a 17.3-degree swing
- Crowds, booking and costs in JuneHigh season, and the figures we could not verify
- What to do on the hill this monthThe park, the Moorish Castle, Quinta da Regaleira
- A two-day plan built around the lightSunrise 6:09 a.m., sunset 9:04 p.m.
- June compared with May and JulyRain falls from 2.00 to 0.53 to 0.11 inch
- Is June a good time to visit?Yes for long dry days, less so for quiet
Pena is one hilltop in a town full of them, and the date question is the one settled below. Where to sleep, how to reach the ridge and what else fills a Sintra day sit in our Sintra guide, while the month-by-month index gathers all twelve versions of the same hill.
Pena Palace weather in June: average highs, lows and rain days
| June normal (1991-2020) | Value |
|---|---|
| Average high | 79.0°F |
| Average low | 61.7°F |
| Day-night spread | 17.3°F |
| Precipitation | 0.53 in |
| Days with 1 mm (0.04 in) or more | 2.0 |
| Days with 10 mm (0.39 in) or more | 0.4 |
| Daylight, June 15 | 14 h 55 min |
| Sunrise and sunset, June 15 | 6:09 a.m. · 9:04 p.m. local |
Every figure here comes from IPMA, the Portuguese institute for the sea and the atmosphere, and from a single station: number 579, Lisboa Gago Coutinho, a real thermometer at 103.9 m rather than a model grid cell. It stands about 25 km from Pena and roughly 400 m lower. Sintra’s ridge manufactures its own cloud, so the palace runs colder, wetter and mistier than these normals. Read 79.0°F as the regional afternoon, and expect the terraces to come in under it whenever the fog holds.
Rain in an average June totals 0.53 inch, spread across 2.0 days that record at least 1 mm (0.04 inch). That threshold belongs to IPMA, not the 0.10 inch used by US tables, so the two counts are not interchangeable with any NOAA page you have open. Two days in thirty catch something measurable, and the rest stay dry at ground level. Hill fog is a different animal, and the normals do not count it at all.
Between the 61.7°F average low and the 79.0°F average high sit 17.3 degrees of swing, most of it delivered before ten in the morning. Carry a light fleece or a shell for the first two hours at the gate, then a shirt for the climb to the terraces. Wind on the exposed parapets adds a bite no thermometer records. Our packing guide handles the rest of the suitcase.
Daylight on June 15 runs 14 hours 55 minutes, from 05:09 to 20:04 UTC, which in Portuguese summer time means 6:09 a.m. to 9:04 p.m. Roughly three hours of soft light remain after the last ticket holders have come down off the hill, and they are best spent in Sintra town or on the way back to Lisbon.
How warm is Pena Palace in June, morning and afternoon?
The June average high reaches 79.0°F and the average low 61.7°F, a spread of 17.3 degrees between the hour before dawn and mid-afternoon. July pushes the afternoon to 82.9°F and the night to 64.4°F, so June still holds the cooler nights of the two, by 2.7 degrees.
You leave the hotel in a layer and you are carrying it by eleven. Mornings in the low 60s make the walk up through the park easy work; afternoons on the open terraces are where 79.0°F lands hardest, with pale stone underfoot and no shade at all on the upper walkways.
No freezing night shows up in a June average at this station, the mean low standing 29.7 degrees above 32°F. We also found no sea-surface reading we could verify for the Sintra coast, so we give no water temperature for Praia das Maçãs or for Cascais down the line.
How busy is Pena Palace in June? Crowds, booking and costs
June opens the Portuguese summer on the calendar, school holidays and long weekends included. Past that, we found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate series we could verify, so we crown no month the cheapest or the dearest of the twelve. For the shape of a summer budget, our cost guide does the arithmetic, and the 12-month verdict ranks the seasons against each other.
Admission prices, opening hours and entry-slot rules at the palace change from season to season, and we could not verify this year’s version, so we quote none. Check the operator before you fix a date, then build the day around the two things that will not move: the 6:09 a.m. sunrise and the 9:04 p.m. sunset. Flights fill for these same weeks. Our US flights guide and the lodging guide take those two decisions on.
We could not verify a Sintra lodging-tax rate either, so we give no percentage and no per-night amount. If a municipal charge applies to your room, ask the desk what it is: it is often billed apart from the rate you booked online, and the figure belongs in your budget rather than in a surprise at checkout.
One upgrade genuinely changes June, and it is a bed in Sintra itself instead of a day trip from the capital. The station we quote sits about 25 km from the hill, the same distance most visitors cover twice in a day. Sleeping on the hill buys both the 61.7°F hour at opening and the long evening at nine. Reaching it without a car is covered in our transport guide.
Things to do at Pena Palace in June: the park, the Moorish Castle and Quinta da Regaleira
With 0.53 inch of rain and 14 hours 55 minutes of daylight, June allows what a wet May often refuses: palace, park and a second hilltop in one day, none of them rushed. May records 5.7 days with measurable rain against June’s 2.0. The gap between the two months is 3.7 wet days.
The names worth your hours cluster close together: the terraces and the Park of Pena around them, Cruz Alta and the Chalet of the Countess of Edla at the far end of the woodland paths, the Moorish Castle walls on the next ridge, and Quinta da Regaleira with the National Palace down in the town. We could not verify current admission prices or hours for any of them, so no ticket figure appears. The layout is mapped in our Sintra guide.
June changes the air around these places rather than the places themselves. Deep in the park the shade feels much as it does in February; what moves is the 79.0°F outside it, 6.0 degrees above May’s 73.0°F and 3.9 below July’s 82.9°F. On the open ramparts of the Moorish Castle that gap decides whether the last hour is a pleasure or a slog, and down in the Valley of the Lakes it barely registers.
We found no free-admission date at Pena for June, so we name none. What costs nothing this month is the tail of the day: the light holds until 9:04 p.m., and the streets, terraces and viewpoints of Sintra town are open to anyone walking them, long after the hilltop gates have done their business.
Pena Palace in June: a two-day itinerary
Day one starts while the air is still near 61.7°F: on the hill by 8, terraces first for the color and the view down the ridge, then the park paths from late morning as the temperature climbs toward 79.0°F. Lunch under the trees, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla in the early afternoon, and the Moorish Castle walls around 5, once the stone has stopped radiating. Dinner in town at 8, with a full hour of daylight still in hand.
Day two belongs to the town: Quinta da Regaleira in the morning, the National Palace after lunch, then a train back with light to spare until 9:04 p.m. If the ridge fogs in, and June mornings on Sintra’s hill often do, flip the order and let the mist burn off while you are indoors. At 2.0 rain days in an average June, a washout is the less likely outcome.
Pena Palace in June vs May and July
| Normal (1991-2020) | May | June | July |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 73.0°F | 79.0°F | 82.9°F |
| Average low | 57.4°F | 61.7°F | 64.4°F |
| Precipitation | 2.00 in | 0.53 in | 0.11 in |
| Days with 1 mm (0.04 in) or more | 5.7 | 2.0 | 0.4 |
May runs 73.0°F by day and 57.4°F at night, with 2.00 inches of rain over 5.7 wet days. June lifts the afternoon to 79.0°F and the night to 61.7°F while cutting rain to 0.53 inch over 2.0 days. July turns drier again at 0.11 inch and 0.4 wet day, with 82.9°F afternoons. For none of the three do we hold a sea-surface figure we could verify, so the beach question stays unanswered by us.
Shift four weeks earlier and you gain 6.0 degrees off the afternoon for walking, then pay nearly four times the rain for it, as our May page sets out. Shift four weeks later and July hands over an almost rainless month at 0.11 inch, plus nights 2.7 degrees warmer and the full weight of high summer on a hill with no shade at the top.
Is June a good time to visit Pena Palace?
For anyone who wants long days and dry ground, yes: 14 hours 55 minutes of light, 0.53 inch of rain over the month, afternoons at 79.0°F. For anyone chasing quiet, less so. The summer season is running by then, and we hold no visitor counts that would let us soften or sharpen that.
If the answer for you is no, the alternative is not May, whose 2.00 inches and 5.7 wet days put real weather on the ridge, but the far side of summer, once the European school holidays have finished. All twelve months are ranked against one another in our best-time guide.
Against its two neighbors, June alone pairs light until 9:04 p.m. with rain already down to 0.53 inch, before July’s 82.9°F afternoons take over the terraces.
The last word
Book the early hour and let the evening run long: on the hill by 8 at 61.7°F, down off it by mid-afternoon, dinner in town while the sky is still bright at nine. One figure we have kept back: heavy rain of 10 mm (0.39 inch) or more in a day averages 0.4 day per June, so a genuine soaking turns up in roughly two Junes out of five. Pack the shell, plan not to need it, and check the palace’s own hours and prices the week you book.
Sources & data for this guide
- June normals (79.0°F high, 61.7°F low, 0.53 in, 2.0 days at 1 mm, 0.4 day at 10 mm) · IPMA climate normals 1991-2020, station 579 Lisboa Gago Coutinho, altitude 103.9 m · checked Sep 24, 2026
- May and July normals used in the comparison · same IPMA 1991-2020 series, station 579 · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise and sunset on June 15 (05:09 and 20:04 UTC, converted to Portuguese summer time) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Station caveat: the thermometer sits about 25 km from Pena and some 400 m lower, and it does not describe the cloud the Sintra hill makes · IPMA station metadata · checked Sep 24, 2026
- We could not verify current admission prices, opening hours or a Sintra lodging-tax rate, and we found no occupancy or room-rate series, so we give no such figures.
- Itineraries, packing notes and place descriptions are editorial; hours and tickets change · check the operator when you book.