First Trip to Sintra

Catolica takes great care of its students, and for the LLM programs that have a lot of exchange students, they try to make sure that we have enough opportunities to get to know one another. The first event we had was a trip to Sintra. Sintra is somewhat comparable to other small palace towns throughout Europe, like Potsdam or Versailles. It has a very different feel than any of those towns though. It is up on a lonely mountain and has its own micro climate. There are several palaces and mansions and the entire town is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We were dropped off in the center of town by the National Palace, which was the residence of Portugal’s rulers from the time of the Moors to the late 1800’s. The current building dates to around the 1400’s…

The rest of the town is a mixture of narrow streets, lined with restaurants, tourist shops, and private homes. All overshadowed by the imposing Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors), which I will talk about more in a later post…

One of the most interesting places, certainly the most unique, we visited was the Quinta da Regaleira. It was originally the estate of the Barons of Regaileira, a merchant family from Porto in the north of Portugal, but it was the eventual owner, Carvalho Monteiro who made it what it is today. The building itself is very symbolic, but it is the gardens that are truly strange. They are filled with symbols and buildings supposedly meant to represent the ideologies of the knights templar. It is a very surreal place, but very beautiful…

The next place we went also had very unique qualities to it. In fact it is a real mix of architectural styles…

It is the Pena National Palace, which became the summer residence of the Portuguese monarchs in the in the late 1800’s. The site itself used to be the location of a monastery which was destroyed in the same earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755. Apparently the ruins of the monastery amazed Ferdinand II, the consort to Dona Maria II. It was he who commissioned the eccentric German architect who designed the palace, which was completed in 1852. It was the summer home to the last of the Portuguese monarchs. Tragic story really. In 1908, republican radicals murdered King Carlos and his heir Luis Filipe in the streets of Lisbon; the younger son, who was wounded in the shooting, became the last king, Manuel II. The revolution ended his reign in 1910. No pictures were allowed inside the residence portion of the palace, but the view of the surrounding countryside is spectacular…

We were a bit rushed because the place was scheduled to close in thirty minutes, so I didn’t stop to take many photos, and by the time we relaxed a bit the sun was going down and my camera doesn’t handle that kind of light well. But fear not, I did go back later so you will just have to wait a bit.