Sintra National Palace

Two enormous white cones rise above the rooftops of Sintra's old town. They are the chimneys of the royal kitchens, and they mark the Palace of Sintra, also called the Town Palace, the best-preserved medieval royal residence in Portugal. Kings lived here more or less continuously from at least the early 15th century to the late 19th, and the building is a layered record of their tastes: Gothic, Manueline, Moorish and Mudéjar elements sit side by side, set off by extensive azulejo tilework. The palace forms part of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A palace stood here under Moorish rule, when it was a residence of the rulers of the Taifa of Lisbon, and passed to Afonso Henriques in the 12th century, but nothing from that time survives. The oldest part of the present building is the Royal Chapel, possibly from the early 14th century, with a Moorish-style lattice ceiling. Most of the core dates from a building campaign launched by John I around 1415: the main façade with its arched entrance and paired windows, the courtyards with Islamic-style water basins, the kitchens, and painted rooms with stories of their own. The Swan Room has thirty swans on its ceiling, said to match the age of the Infanta Isabel when she married Philip the Good of Burgundy. In the Magpie Room, tradition says John I had the ceiling painted with as many magpies as there were ladies at court, each holding the motto "por bem", to silence gossip after the queen caught him kissing a lady-in-waiting.

Manuel I added the second great layer between 1497 and 1530, paid for by the wealth of the age of discoveries. He built the Manueline Wing and the Coat of Arms Room of 1515–1518, whose domed and coffered wooden ceiling carries 72 coats of arms of the king and the leading noble families of Portugal, and he lined many rooms with polychrome tiles made for him in Seville. Later centuries left their own marks: the deposed Afonso VI was confined here from 1676 until his death in 1683, the tower over the Arab Room fell in the 1755 earthquake, and in the 1940s the architect Raul Lino restored the palace with furniture and tiles gathered from other royal houses.

Getting there

The palace stands in the centre of the historic town of Sintra, in the Lisbon District. The closest airfield by straight line is Cascais Municipal Aerodrome (CAT), about 9 km away; the main international gateway is Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS), roughly 22 km to the east. Sintra railway station, the terminus of the suburban line from Lisbon, is within walking distance.