The Palacio da Fonte Nova is the newest member of the Sintra palace club — an exclusive event space, recently opened, that joins the elegance of a historic palace to a versatility the range’s monuments simply don’t have. Here you can book everything, start to finish, with no visiting hours to respect.
And versatility is its trump card: three gardens with fountains, statues, urns, and greenhouses, a courtyard, and several indoor rooms, in a space that hosts everything from intimate sixty-person dinners to celebrations of twelve hundred guests. Few venues in Portugal cover this range.
For couples who want a Sintra palace bookable in full, with scale to measure, this is the spot. If you ask us, it’s the most flexible palace in the range.
The palace is an event space with no accommodation on-site. Mary Me coordinates room blocks at the Sintra hotels and handles transfers, so the wedding party and guests sleep nearby and reach the palace without a hitch.
Surrounded by the enchanted landscape of Sintra, the Palacio da Fonte Nova stands out for its elegant architecture and for gardens filled with historic elements — fountains, statues, urns, and greenhouses — that give each corner its own setting. It’s a palace with an old soul and a new operation.
The space is part of the Penha Longa Catering portfolio, which thus strengthened its position in premium events in the area, alongside the Penha Longa Monastery and the Ruinas Historicas do Nuncio. The same kitchen and the same service that support the group’s other venues are at your disposal here.
If you ask us, there are palaces trapped in the past and palaces that use the past as a setting for the present. The Fonte Nova is clearly the second kind.
We’re in the heart of the Sintra landscape, surrounded by the hills and greenery that make the region a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The palace combines green seclusion with the closeness of the town and the other palaces, a few minutes away.
The advantage for a destination wedding is scale with access: Lisbon airport is about thirty-five minutes away, and there are hotels and complementary venues a short distance off.
Anything the guests might want to do — explore the palaces of Sintra, a day in Lisbon, an escape to the beach — is at hand. Arriving is easy. Leaving — we can’t quite guarantee that part.
The Fonte Nova’s great advantage is flexibility: the same palace that sets up an intimate sixty-person dinner in an indoor room hosts a twelve-hundred-guest celebration across the three gardens, the courtyard, and the rooms. That gives a freedom of format few venues allow.
The ceremony takes place in the gardens, by the fountains and greenhouses, or in the courtyard; the cocktail spreads among the statuary at sunset; dinner and the party set up in the rooms or under a marquee in the gardens, with Penha Longa Catering. As it runs on a full-buyout basis, the whole palace is yours on the day.
It’s a venue that adapts to the wedding, not the other way around — ideal both for large-scale celebrations, including multicultural ones, and for more contained parties with palace refinement. And this is exactly where our experience comes in. The couple’s session winds through the three gardens, the greenhouses, and the fountains of the palace grounds. Pop the question. We handle the rest.
A versatile palace bookable in full like this is precisely the kind of canvas where our coordination pays off most, especially in the large celebrations where every metre counts.
Its scale is what makes it ideal for a multi-moment multicultural wedding. The three gardens and courtyard can hold a mehndi, a mandap, and a reception across one property; Penha Longa Catering builds the halal, Chinese-banquet, or Jain vegetarian menus with us, and we bring the pandits and officiants used to Sintra.
We handle the design of the day and the distribution of the moments across the three gardens, courtyard, and rooms, in coordination with Penha Longa Catering, and we manage the accommodation at the Sintra hotels and the transfers from Lisbon airport, thirty-five minutes away. And there’s the practical side: the civil-ceremony paperwork in Portuguese, the sound permits, and a programme of palaces, Lisbon, and beaches for the guests. From the first call to the last dance.
It’s one of the most versatile venues in Sintra — it hosts everything from intimate dinners of around sixty people to celebrations of twelve hundred guests, spread across the three gardens, courtyard, and rooms. The exact capacity for your format is confirmed with the operation.
Yes — it runs on a full-buyout basis, so the entire palace is yours on the day. Mary Me coordinates the terms with the venue’s operation.
No — it’s an event space. Mary Me coordinates the room blocks at the Sintra hotels and handles the transfers, so guests sleep nearby.
Penha Longa Catering, the same operation behind the Penha Longa Monastery and the Ruínas Históricas do Núncio, with kitchen and service of standard for any scale.
Unlike the Pena, Queluz, or Monserrate, run for public visitation, the Fonte Nova is a private event space, fully bookable and with no visiting hours to respect — with a versatility of scale the monuments don’t have.
From late spring to early autumn, to enjoy the three gardens and the greenhouses at their peak. We recommend booking in advance, especially for summer dates.
It’s a historic palace turned exclusive event space, with three gardens of fountains, statues, and greenhouses, bookable in full and versatile from sixty to twelve hundred guests, in the heart of the Sintra landscape. Flexibility like no other palace in the range.
