Sintra an expensive tour

Today, me and my girlfriend went to Sintra (in Portugal) to take a stroll through the city and visit the region's numerous parks and palaces. This marks the beginning of my holidays this year, if we can really call it that when I must drag the laptop around.

About the tour in Sintra, it began nicely throughout the city: visiting traditional shops, walking along with foreigners while choosing the place to eat in.
In the afternoon we went to visit the parks, intending to visit Seteais and Pena. Along the way we pass next to others parks, and in all the ticket price was an unbelievable 4€. With this prices we give up on visiting the parks, we went straight to Pena palace were they ask us for a 3€ ticket. This seamed alright, however, to reach the palace we must go through the Pena park and add a 4€ ticket.

Were these prices ever meant for national citizens to visit these places, or just to retain foreign currency from our pale visitors?
Is it suitable a 5€ ticket to visit a park, than in reality is just a well cared garden?

Moral: A tour to Sintra can be very expensive.