Writer Molly McCloskey is captivated by the palaces, castles and mansions of Sintra, the retreat of writers, merchants, and former kings of Portugal
The approach is slightly disconcerting. Billed as a bucolic escape from Lisbon, Sintra is less than an hour by train from the Portuguese capital. But just three stops shy of this mountain town, tower blocks and graffiti are still much in evidence and, apart from a few spillages of bougainvillea, there is little sign of anything "natural". Do not despair. The less salubrious markers of civilisation do abruptly vanish and what appears is a vast stretch of mountainous woodland, out of which rise palaces, mansions and castles - enormous relics of the fancies and fantasies of various royals and other enormously wealthy beings.
The surrounding area was the former summer retreat of the kings of Portugal and, before them, the Moorish lords of Lisbon. Byron was one of many Englishmen who fell for Sintra; in 1809, he began work here on Childe Harold, which refers to "Cintra's glorious Eden". The expanse of lush greenery, wooded ravines and massive rock formations enjoys a temperate microclimate, while the historic centre of Sintra-Vila, with its narrow lanes, cafes and restaurants, retains - despite a few souvenir shops - the feel of a mountain town going about its business at a leisurely pace.
At the centre of it all sits the Palácio da Pena. Set in a hilly landscaped woodland, the palace was built in the 1840s by Prince Consort Ferdinand, husband of Queen Maria II, on the remains of a 15th-century convent, which was itself founded to celebrate the first glimpse of Vasco da Gama's returning fleet. The palace doesn't so much appear on the hillside as erupt. My guidebook's description of it as a "compelling riot of kitsch" didn't quite prepare me.
The palace is approached by crossing a mock-drawbridge and passing through a mock-Manueline gateway (Manueline architecture was named after King Manuel I of the 16th century and often included motifs from the "age of discovery": ropes, nets, seaweed, crustaceans). The exterior is a bouquet of domes, towers, ramparts and turrets, like fantastical extensions to what must once have been a comparatively discreet structure.
The interior is preserved exactly as it was when the royal family fled Portugal in 1910 - an explanatory card outside the Queen's room notes: "The profusion of objects demonstrates the horror of empty spaces that marked the period". The highlight must be the chapel which, along with the cloister, is all that remains of the original convent. Dominated by a limestone and alabaster altar, it is a haven of tiled emptiness in the midst of a dizzyingly cluttered space.
From the Palácio da Pena, a winding stone-step path will bring you to Castelo dos Mouros. This castle was built on the site of an earlier Arab fortification, taken in the 12th century during the crusades. It extends across two rocky summits.
Between its fortifications sit the remains of a mosque. From the castle's ruined ramparts, the views - as at Pena - are spectacular. To the south, one can see beyond Lisbon's famous Ponte 25 de Abril; to the west the seaside village of Cascais and the dramatic Cabo da Roca are visible.
The walk from Castelo dos Mouros continues downhill to Sintra-Vila along the stone pathway (if the knees are weak, one can catch a local bus from the Castle). A few minutes from the town centre is the Unesco world heritage site of Quinta da Regaleira. This estate was built between 1904 and 1910, during the last years of the Portuguese monarchy, and subsequently purchased by Brazilian merchant António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro.
Carvalho Monteiro hired an Italian theatrical set designer and architect who had worked at Milan's La Scala to shape the estate, both architecturally and environmentally. The neo-Manueline palace and chapel attempt to conjure 16th-century glories, but it is the gardens that are the lure. Carvalho Monteiro wanted nothing less than to carve out of the landscape a cosmological vision - a "synthesis of the spiritual memory of mankind" - and the sprawling gardens are designed around allusions to, among other things, the Garden of Eden, Dante, Virgil, Greek and Portuguese mythology, alchemy, and the Freemasons.
One could lose oneself for hours on the meandering paths. The gardens are not excessively signposted and so a childlike spirit of discovery reigns as one ducks into tunnels and caves, crosses foot bridges, ascends the steep spiral staircases of the towers, or happens upon grottoes or a fabulous old greenhouse in ruins.
Another star of Sintra is Monserrate, a Victorian folly-like mansion situated in one of Europe's best stocked gardens, an immense warren of pathways winding through a park of exotic trees, valleys and sub-tropical plants. Its guiding spirits included two Englishmen - William Beckford and Sir Francis Cook. Beckford was the author of the Gothic novel Vathek and the wealthiest untitled Englishman of his age. When he rented Monserrate in the late 18th century (having fled England after being caught in a compromising position with a 16-year-old boy), he imported a flock of sheep and posted warblers and musicians about the grounds. Cook, an English merchant who succeeded him in the 19th century, hired the head gardener from Kew to sculpt the landscape.
The exterior of the mansion (currently closed for renovations) is a combination of Italian and Moorish flourishes, and looks oddly like those neo-Dallas mansions one sees all over the west of Ireland now. More tantalising are the ruins of a 1540 chapel. Beckford began to build a neo-gothic house over these ruins, but never finished it, and Cook subsequently modified the structure to (re)create a "romantic ruin". Actual ruin combines with "created" ruin, and the tentacles of a banyan tree wrap themselves around the shell.
About 10 kilometres from Sintra-Vila lies the Convento dos Capuchos. The walk is stunning, if tiring, and taxis are the only form of transport to the convent. Constructed in 1560, the spartan hermitage - Philip II, King of Spain and Portugal, singled it out as the poorest convent of his kingdom - is composed of tiny cork-lined cells carved from the rock. The convent was founded by Franciscan friars who wished to return to a more humble and austere form of worship, and was occupied until 1834 when its last eight inhabitants abandoned it.
Non-hierarchical and largely self-sufficient, the monks limited their speech to a single room, holding that they should not otherwise speak unless what they were going to say was more beautiful than silence. Their sleeping rooms were five paces by six, not long enough to stretch out in (only the dead slept stretched to their full length), and the low doorways forced them to genuflect when entering.
The secluded convent is an antidote to the otherwise sumptuous offerings of the area - grandiose visions that found form in these mountains. The presence of so many startling confections in this peaceful woodland can provoke in a visitor to Sintra a kind of cognitive dissonance. But visit, one should. There is a Spanish proverb that states: "To see the world and leave out Sintra is to go blind about." Certainly, to go to Lisbon and not divert to Sintra would be to miss something both beautiful and bizarre.
Aer Lingus flies from Dublin to Lisbon on Thursdays and Sundays