About 30kms outside Lisbon is an unusual town called Sintra, a ex-Royal sanctuary in a lush tropical forest studded with pastel coloured village houses, chateaux and palaces.
The Sintra Mountains are home to two buildings, the remains of a Moorish Castle and the Pena National Palace, a fairytale gothic Disney looking building that makes you want to rub your eyes to make sure you are not seeing things. Access to both buildings is up a single track one way road, winding up one side of the mountain with various parking slots up the route. We were never too sure whether to grab a parking space when we saw one because we didnt have a clue as to how much further we had to go. We were really lucky and squeezed into a spot right outside the entrance to the Castle, which turned out to be only 1.5km away from the Palace! The current Royal Palace is in an area on the slopes of the mountain, as is the turreted white Municipal building in the town square and several other properties owned by Portuguese Royalty, high society and celebrities.
The Windy Castle of the Moors
The castle was originally built in the 10th century, the Moors rule ended in 1147 and in 1839, King Ferdinand II acquired the Castle and converted it to the romantic style of the 19th century through exuberant planting and reconstruction in accordance with a medieval imaginary. All that remains now are the majority of the castle granite and limestone walls, all 600 metres of them, 420m above sea level. The majority of it’s towers are still accessible, (health & safety goes out the window here) and give amazing views of the surrounding countryside, right over to the sea 30kms away. The castle was built on granite rocks, balancing precariously but with remains of storage silos, houses, churches and gatehouses further down, it is assumed that the supporting village was once much bigger. So after having climbed up steep walkways to the castle, then walked the length of the walls, our knees were starting to feel under a little pressure before we realised that we had to walk back down and up another hill to the Palace! A short lunch break helped the energy levels and we pushed on. The walk was so worth it.
Pretentious Pena Palace
The palace in its present day form was commissioned in the 1800s by Ferdinand August Franz Anton from Austria, who married into the Portuguese royal family and became King Ferdinand II.
The Palace was built in such a way as to be visible from any point in the surrounding park, which consists of a forest and luxuriant gardens with over five hundred different species of trees originating from the four corners of the earth.
in 1493, the Palace was originally a Monastery, housing up to 18 monks; it was severely damaged by lightning in the early 18th century, followed by the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755 that reduced it to ruins. Amazingly, the chapel (and its works of marble and alabaster) escaped without significant damage.
In 1838, King Ferdinand II decided to acquire the old monastery, all of the surrounding lands, the nearby Castle of the Moors and a few other estates in the area. He then set out to transform the remains of the monastery into a palace that would serve as a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. King Ferdinand II marveled at the stunning views from the rocky outcrop and demanded a castle built to rival the Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria. His only design input was that the palace should reflect an opera and is it was left to Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege to create this magical palace.
The palace has grotesque gargoyles that peer down over the main entrance, and illusionary spiked walls all below the vividly painted exterior. It is such an unusual place, full of turrets, castellated walls, walkways, connecting tunnels and beautiful rooms, gaudy gargoyles, colourful mosaics and paintings and beautiful tiles. The hike to it was so worth it! It was gobsmacking, wonderful and unusual, gaudy and yet endearing, and so full of bl@@dy tourists!!!!! The rooms are still laid out with furniture as the Kings and Queens would have used up to 1910, the ornaments and paintings all shown images of family, love and happiness. The interior of the palace was equally as fascinating as the exterior, being restored to reflect the decor of 1910, when the Portuguese nobility fled to Brazil to escape the revolution.
King Ferdinand II spent much of his later life based in the palace with his second wife, Elise Hensler. On the death of Ferdinand the palace was inherited by Elise who had become Countess d’made Edla. In 1995, the palace and the Cultural Landscape of Sintra were classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The architectural styling is classified as a 19th century Romanticism styled building.
Exterior
Interior Rooms – Bedrooms & Bathroom
Living Room & The Indian Room
The Deer Room – Deer Heads and Stained Glass Displays
And finally, the Chapel and Kitchens
Monseratte Palace
We headed further down the hill to Monseratte Palace, this was originally a chapel (in 1093) with 350 hectares of farmland, taken over in the 17th century by a local family but following the 1755 earthquake, it fell in disrepair and was abandoned. An English merchant rented the land in 1789 and built a neo-gothic house over the ruins; in 1793-1794 the estate was subleased by William Thomas Beckford who started to design a landscaped garden. Francis Cook, a wealthy English material merchant who subleased the estate in 1856 and was graced with the title of Viscount of Monserrate by King D. Louis; he purchased the property in 1863 and started to work with the architect James Knowles on the remains of the house and The Palace became the summer residence of the Cook family.
Cook rebuilt the house and created a tropical garden around it, adding natural lakes and ponds. The result was a spectacular house. It has 3 domes, one either end and one in the middle with a column of pillars down the middle of the house creating a walkway, with rooms off to the left and right. The rooms were decorated to the style of the house, and its owner began an unrivalled art collection, using the house only in the summer whilst living and working in Bradfield, UK. He employed a friend and his family to act as housekeepers, moved them from the UK and the house was kept alive with society and celebrity parties until the war broke out. The upkeep became too much, the painting were sold off to pay for maintenance but eventually in the 1950s the house was closed up and sold off to the Portuguese government.
The entrance and Hallway
Some of the internal rooms
Other Buildings in the Area – The conical National Palace
The current Royal Palace, a truly Gothic Mansion
Cabo de Roca
We left the amazing town of Sintra having explored just a small bit of it and headed back to Lisbon, via Cabo de Roca, another clifftop viewpoint (along with Cap St Vincent) claiming to be the furthest point west in Europe! Having confirmed it all with Wikipedia, Cap St Vincent is the most southwestern point of Portugal and the European continent, the Phoenicians considered this the end of the world because they thought the sun set into the sea. Cabo de Roca meanwhile is officially the most westerly point of Portugal and Europe.
As we drove along the shoreline, we stopped at a beachside restaurant, and had the most expensive fish meal we have ever had!! The sea bass was 70 a kilo and the whole meal, consisting of 2 soup starters, one sea bass and one veal, 3 soft drinks, came to 110 for the two of us!!! Its fair to say, the fish was delicious (David says) but the cost was not really worth it. We found out later that the Chef has a Michelin star, maybe that justified the bill???
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