Freedom Park

Freedom Park sits on a slope in the Sintra hills, defined by its dense collection of exotic trees brought from across the globe in the nineteenth century. King Fernando the Second wanted a romantic, lush garden to accompany his nearby palace, so he imported sequoias, cedars, and ferns to transform the scrubland into an arboretum. A local botanist spent years tending these foreign imports, which thrived in the misty, temperate climate of the mountainside. The trees still block the sky today.