Maybe Portugal has some secret essence that brings out the magic in people. Or maybe it attracts especially fantasy-minded people. Either way, Sintra -- a little city by the sea in Southern Portugal -- is enchanted.
Frivolous, fabulous, fanciful medieval castle, here for hundreds of years
It looks almost like a Lego construction, because you can hardly believe this was a serious, fortified castle for real kings & queens & chivalrous knights & damsels in distress, but it was!
You have to just sit right down & laugh & marvel & be glad to belong to the wonderful, crazy brotherhood, motherhood, fatherhood, sisterhood known as the human race.
His majesty & her majesty can gaze over their kingdom no matter which way they look
Tiles everywhere, including these nice little murder scenarios
Interior rooms are surprisingly smaller than your average castle. This was avant guarde design, intended to create for the first time (for royalty) more intimate living spaces.
Royals loved to show off their furnishings from all over the world, such as this wicker sun room set from India.
Being a castle, of course there must be castle-y stained glass windows
And there must be acres & acres of gardens all over the mountainside, with exotic imported plants
And the queen, in this case an opera singer trained in Boston, must have a private chalet for herself & her king, an occasional retreat out of sight of the main castle. It is really, really good to be loved by a king...he will build you anything & everything your little heart desires.
Gorgeous warmth & harmony of design inside
A private boudoir fit for a king & queen who were actually crazy about each other
It took 2 hours to walk down off that mountain (most people drive or take a bus. I took the bus up, but walked down because it was lush & gorgeous, even though the road was so narrow & the switchbacks so numerous & blind that I had to jump into the ditches off the edge of the roadway to avoid the cars & busses.)
Interesting sights on the way down.....the town of Sintra far below
The occasional mountain boy with red tassels on his socks
A statue of a queen & another real castle in the distance
Every public building in Sintra is castle-ish
Even the bus stops!
This is one of those street performers covered in paint who freezes for long periods so that they look like statues. This knightly fellow was really good at freezing, then every now & then he'd mock stab at a tourist with his javelin, causing the tourist to leap & shriek in surprise & fear. It was pretty funny.
Way up, up in the clouds is a castle that makes your eyes pop out. You have to go to the top of a really high mountain (as is true of all magical things in Portugal). It's a Romanticist palace built on rock & is one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. It's visible from Lisbon on a clear day. It was built in 1493, then fell to ruins in the 1755 earthquake. It lay fallow for years, until King Ferdinand came along in 1835, bought all the monasteries & palaces in the region, & set about restoring them based on an eclectic mishmash of Neo-Gothic, Neo- Manueline, Neo-Islamic, & Neo-Renaissance design. The original colors faded & it was essentially gray for a long time. They were restored in a massive repainting job at the end of the 20th century.
If the queen loves ferns, the queen shall have a vast fern garden; they grow huge in the fertile soil
The castle is gorgeous! I'd like to see it in person, beautiful pictures.
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