Sintra has long been known as a fairytale place of beauty and romance, nestling in an oasis of greenery on a mountain high above sea level and presenting views and weather so beautiful that countless kings, noblemen and poets have made their home there, especially in summer when Sintra's weather is particularly stunning.The palace is surrounded by a beautiful park filled with a variety of trees and flowers brought from every corner of the Portuguese empire by Dom Fernando in the 1840's. An odder Sintra site is the Convento dos Capuchos, a tiny 16th century hermitage in the forest with cells hewn from rock and lined with cork. In fact, Sintra is so filled with historical sites that in 1995, UNESCO approved the classification of Sintra as World Heritage, under the "Cultural Landscape" category for its areas of great historical and artistic interest, noting the National Palace of Sintra and the Palaces of Pena and Monserrate as particularly valuable.