PORTUGAL: SINTRA'S QUINTA DA REGALEIRA AND LUNCH

 June 23, 2022

Our second stop in Sintra was a large property called Quinta da Regaleira. In Portugal, a quinta is a large, primarily rural estate, especially one with a luxurious mansion or palace. The 10-acre property comprises steep hills and a warren of roads, footpaths, stairways, and tunnels that make it seem far larger than it is.

Our guide Filipa dropped our group of eight at the top of the property, gave us general guidelines and directions, and told us when to meet her at the bottom of the hill near the palace. We set out as a group and stayed together as we made our way through the luxuriant forests and gardens that were designed and created by Carvalho Monteiro, an eccentric Brazilian-Portuguese businessman, collector, and book lover who bought the property from the Viscountess of Regaleira in 1892. Between 1904 and 1910 and with the aid of Italian architect Luigi Manini, Monteiro created a dazzling and enigmatic estate that paid tribute to his varied interests. After 1942, the property changed hands several times, finally being acquired by the Sintra Town Council in 1997, which opened it to the public the following year. The property and castle are a key part of Sintra's designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Given our time constraints, we couldn't do the exquisite gardens justice. This is a place that needs repeated visits and free exploration. However, what we did see was extraordinary. I would like to have met the two men whose imagination led to the creation of this park.

Towers and turrets along the way were not only good for photos, but provided less-obstructed views of the surrounding forest.

If you look very carefully at the photo on the above right, you'll see the Moorish Castle that we could see from the Sintra Pena Palace wall walk. Here's a zoomed-in version:

PORTUGAL: SINTRA'S PENA PALACE

 June 23, 2022

After our first night of blissful sleep in Lisbon, I walked down to breakfast in the hotel and passed under a waterfall coming from the ceiling. Apparently it was part of the "little leak" that had set of our alarms the previous evening.

After a very quick breakfast, we walked to another hotel two blocks away to be picked up for a small group day-trip to Sintra, a beautiful town about 17 miles west-northwest of Lisbon that is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We met our guide, Filipa, there, and then picked up another couple from Great Britain and a family of four from Northern California. As is usually our experience on tours like these, everyone turned out to be very nice, and we had a wonderful day together.

Anticipating crowds later in the day, Filipa drove straight to Sintra's main attraction, Pena National Palace, built on top of and around an early 16-century monastery in the 1800s by Ferdinand II, King of Portugal from 1837-1853.

We began with a lovely walk from our parking spot through Pena Park, a rather dense forest of trees from all over the world. In fact, there are 500 different species, including some giant redwoods from California.

Doesn't that look like Narnia's lamppost on the left?

I was not quite prepared for our first views of the colorful palace. Gold, blue, purple, black, red--I'd never seen anything like it before. Each section was a different architectural style and a different color.