Palace / CastlePalácio Nacional de Sintra

It‘s possible to get to Sintra from Lisbon directly but I can‘t tell you anything about this as we went to Cascais first, the seaside town at the mouth of the river Tejo, and took a bus from there.

Sintra is a town of about 20 000 inhabitants situated on a slope with the ruins of a Moorish fortress on the top of the mountain. We got off at the highest point of the town, the National Palace which is in the middle of the slope with the town below, the palace and the town were classified by UNESCO as part of World Heritage in 1995.

Built on the remains of another Moorish fortress the palace was used for centuries by the Portuguese royal families as a refuge from the unbearable heat of Lisbon and outbreaks of the plague, the building was expanded several times, it‘s not easy to walk through and not lose one‘s way, there are frequent twists and turns (open from 10am to 5.30 pm, closed on Wednesdays and public holidays, entrance fee 4 Euro/concession 2 Euro [three years ago]).

It‘s a small and ‘liveable‘ palace, not at all show-offy. I found two rooms outstanding: King Alfonso IV‘s bedroom to which he was confined for nine years by his brother King Pedro II until he finally died there and the so-called Magpie Room, a private antechamber whose ceiling is decorated with magpies holding ribbons in their beaks bearing the King‘s motto ‘For the Best‘. When King João I was caught by his English (!) Queen kissing a lady-in-waiting, he remarked ‘It was for the best‘; although his wife forgave him, he was so enraged by the continuous palace gossip that he ordered magpies to be painted above the scene of crime, as many as there were ladies at the court 136!

After the visit of the palace we relaxed in the Café Paris opposite, it can‘t be missed, the whole front is covered in blue tiles, it was built in 1800 in the classical Parisian café style, we took a café com laite (coffee with milk) and a queijada, a small sweet cake of almonds and cottage cheese, delicious!