Inspiration for all in stunning Sintra
THE 19TH CENTURY English Romantic poet Lord Byron was underwhelmed by Portugal, until he arrived in the resort town of Sintra, where he became so inspired that he penned part of his brooding Gothic travelogue, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
It is easy to see how Sintra engaged Byron's dark sensibilities. The strange hilltop palaces and elegantly decaying villas dotted around a craggy landscape of towering peaks, cliffs, waterfalls and lush vegetation casts a powerful spell of mystic romanticism. And never more so than when the summer mists blow in from the Atlantic to render Sintra even more atmospheric.
Only 28km northwest of Lisbon and easily accessed by rail, Sintra draws artists, scribes, lovers and day-trippers to an environment where the interplay of the natural and the man-made produce striking results. The heart of Sintra, on the north slope of the Serra de Sintra, is where its most breathtaking historical buildings can be found and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. But Sintra is sprawling and encompasses picturesque villages, a ruined castle that was destroyed in a battle between the Crusaders and the Moors in 1174, and a monastery buried deep in a Tolkeinesque wood.
The most iconic of Sintra's palaces is the Palacio Nacional Da Pena. With its absurd turrets and Wagnerian grandeur, it looks like a transplant from a Grimm's fairy tale. So I was unsurprised to learn that its architect was 19th Century Prussian Ludwig von Eschwege. The extravagant interior remains more or less unchanged since Queen Amelia left the residence in 1910. Rooms are crammed with objets d'art and ancestral memories. Opulence is everywhere. Even the bathrooms look as gloriously neo-classical as the lobbies of more than a few upmarket Hong Kong hotels. It is a steep climb to reach this palace, so many visitors choose to take the shuttle bus (Euro1.50 return).
More royal history can be explored in the Palacio Nacional De Sintra. Originally Moorish in design, additions in the 15th and 16th centuries have added to its hodgepodge character. The building now contains elements of Gothic, Mudejar, Manueline, and Renaissance architecture. King Sebasti?o was crowned there in 1557. And the less-lucky Alfonso VI was imprisoned there 117 years later, but this did not prevent the palace from becoming, over subsequent centuries, a royal retreat from the heat and dust of Lisbon. Monarchs and their families could relax within walls adorned with geometric Islamic designs, alabaster gold-collared swans and intricately painted magpies.
The most mystical-looking building in Sintra - although it has plenty of competition - is the Quinta Da Regaleira villa, designed by Italian opera-set designer Luigi Manini (although its supernatural-looking appearance suggests it could have been designed by Tim Burton).
The villa is festooned with symbols derived from freemasonry, alchemy and mythology. The surrounding gardens offer a Gothic microcosm of grottoes, cedars, lakes and underground caverns.
Sintra's abundant semi-wild parkland provides some excellent walking opportunities. The variety of flora is astounding: huge redwoods, camellias, conifers, Chinese weeping cypress, eucalyptus and Himalayan rhododendrons, to name just a few species. If some corners of Sintra remind British visitors of London's Kew Gardens, this is because many exotic plants here were imported from Kew in the mid-19th century.
In addition to walking or hiking, mountain-biking and horse-riding opportunities abound. One can even take a jeep tour around Sintra, a fine way to enjoy the vicinity.
Most visitors are day-trippers, but locals assert that a single day cannot truly do justice to the area's multiple charms. To fully absorb all of them, an overnight stay is advised. There is a plethora of accommodation choices, of which the one with the best views is Lawrence's Hotel.
Lord Bryon stayed there in 1807 and it is where he best described Sintra's enduring appeal. 'Lo! Sintra's glorious Eden intervenes, in variegated maze of mount and glen'.
