Sintra - Quinta Da Regaleira
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Thu 16 Sep 2010 09:19
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Today we planned to go up to Sintra which is a town
about 20km from Cascais - very pretty and the place where the 19C rulers of
Portugal had their palaces and a must-see of the area - we will be going back
for another day as we haven't done half of it yet. We had to sort out our
anchor before we left as it was rather windy and rainy here this morning (after
32 degrees yesterday, we were in 'British summer' today!) - we had the bright
idea of putting out an anchor buoy to mark our anchor when we arrived and also
to allow us to trip it if it got tangled in ropes etc on the bottom - the trip
line ended up mangling itself around the chain and anchor so the whole mess
had to be hauled up and put out again as it turned into a big ball
of string and chain (not very professional looking at all) - we couldn't
leave the boat like that for the day as it may not be there when we got back. .
. .
Sintra is up in the hills, it gets more rain but is
really green as a result - the hills are covered in deciduous woodland and
fern. Susie wanted to visit Quinta Da Regaleira which is a house and
gardens up in Sintra. It isn't a normal house and gardens though - it
was built about 120 years ago by someone who clearly wanted an Alice in
wonderland type place, the garden is build on steep ground so is
terraced but is full of grotto's, folly's and caves - great for kids
and for kids like us. Many of Portugals famous artists and
designers of the time were commissioned to design various bits.
It was actually good that it was a cool and cloudy day since we did a lot
of walking.. . . .
This is the house and little church in the
foreground - would suit us I think?
 Inside the house there were various towers and
turrets - going up one tower we found the libaray. The picture isn't very
good but it was kept very dark in there - this was to confuse. The
floor in the library centre was slightly raised but dropped by a few
inches for the last foot all around the edge, where there were
mirrors. It was horrible to walk around in - it took a while to work out
that the books didn't descend downward and it was just mirrors, can't really
describe it well enough but it was very wierd. Wish one of us had
been on the picture but it was so dark we didn't think it would come out at all
- but you can see the 'floating floor'.
 One of the best features of the garden was the
spooky well - this was very deep (about 90 feet) with steps all the way
down - at the bottom various tunnels lead out to different parts of the garden -
must have been a lot of work in making those. Some of the tunnels were not lit
and we had no torch so no idea where they went, you had to blindly walk
down them only to emerge somewhere completely different and spend the next 10
minutes trying to work out the map as the entire garden was rather maze
like.
 In order to get into the top of the well was an
entrance only ever seen on cartoons and Indiana jones films - a revolving 6 inch
thick stone door, a must in every garden, here's a villain making good his
escape - may look innocent but don't believe it
 Building Paths around ponds would just be too easy
- much better to pick your way through various tunnels and then emerge at
stepping stones - much more potential for embarrassment - the water was a lot
deeper than it looks!
 All over the garden were various folly's - not one
or two, that would be boring - but turrets and towers with spiral staircases to
climb - but how many Susie's are looking out of this one? - in the centre
of this folly is another tunnel to the well.
 View over the garden and up to the Pena Palace on
the hill top which we will visit on our next visit to Sintra.
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