Nancy and Doug Trips

This was great. No line ups and of much more historical interest than Pena Palace which was built on the fantasy of Bavarian romanticism at the time. Would put it much before Sintra as the place to see. After this stopped by the bakery for the pastry treat called Travesseiros that made it into Wikipedia was served. Sugar sprinkled warm puff pastry with almond filling; yummy, thus far we've had 4 of the 25 must try pastries of Portugal....would need to lose 10 lbs before coming here if we were to try them all!

The Palace of Sintra is the best-preserved medieval royal residence in Portugal, being inhabited more or less continuously from at least the early 15th century to the late 19th century. It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was, along with Castelo dos Mouros one of two Moorish castles in the region. In the 12th century the village was conquered by King Afonso Henriques, The blend of Gothic, Manueline, Moorish, and Mudéjar styles in the present palace is, however, mainly the result of building campaigns in the 15th and early 16th centuries.

Nothing built during Moorish rule or during the reign of the first Portuguese kings survives.

The earliest surviving part of the palace is the Royal Chapel, built during the reign of King Dinis I in the early 14th century. The palace chapel has a tiled floor with tiles in the apse laid to resemble a carpet. The walls are painted in patterned squares that look like tiles and depict the Holy Ghost descending in the form of a dove. The wooden ceiling is decorated in geometrically patterned Moorish latticework.

The Swan Room in Manueline style, named so because of the swans painted on the ceiling. The number of painted swans, the symbol of the house of the groom, Philip the Good of Burgundy, equals to the bride's, Infanta Isabel, age – 30.

Magpie Room the magpies painted on the ceiling and the frieze hold the emblem por bem (for honour) in their beaks. This relates to the story that King John I was caught in the act of kissing a lady-in-waiting by his queen Philippa of Lancaster. To put a stop to all the gossip, he had the room decorated with as many magpies as there were women at the court (136).

.The pair of extraordinary kitchens are large rooms each with a wall of ovens and cooking stoves above which, in place of a ceiling, rise an enormous pair of conical chimneys that taper as they reach skyward.

The other major building campaign that defined the structure and decoration of the palace was sponsored by King Manuel I between 1497 and 1530, using the wealth engendered by the exploratory expeditions in this Age of Discoveries. The reign of this King saw the development of a transitional Gothic-Renaissance art style, named Manueline, as well as a kind of revival of Islamic artistic influence (Mudéjar) reflected in the choice of polychromed ceramic tiles (azulejos) as a preferred decorative art form.

He also built the Coats-of-Arms Room, the most magnificently decorated room in the palace, and one of the most artistically significant heraldic rooms in Europe. (1515–1518), with a magnificent wooden coffered domed ceiling decorated with 72 coats-of-arms of the King and the main Portuguese noble families.

A sad story associated with the palace is that of the mentally unstable King Afonso VI, who was deposed by his brother Pedro II and forced to live without leaving the residence from 1676 until his death in 1683.

The palace suffered damage after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake but was restored in the "old fashion",

During the 19th century, Sintra became again a favourite spot for the Kings. With the foundation of the Republic, in 1910, it became a national monument. In the 1940s, it was restored by architect Raul Lino, who tried to return it to its former splendour .Les mer