| Actual Image
Grey sky over Pena (Feather) Palace (80)
stego
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 3653 W: 605 N: 5088]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (16307) | I visited very few "world class romantic places", but even so it's easy to me to believe that the hyperbolic statement found in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page on this palace isn't far from the truth: "...[it] constitutes one of the major expressions of 19th century Romanticism in the world". And this palace is far from being the only thing that makes worth a visit to the little town of Sintra and its surroundings, an area the just outside Lisboa that is listed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites as the "Cultural Landscape of Sintra".
The palace was built by the German/Hungarian prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Fernando II of Portugal, whose family ruled in what is now Slovakia, who was married the Portuguese queen Maria II in 1836. Two years after his marriage, he acquired the place where lay the ruins of a Hieronymite monastery that had been built in late 15th century, first as just a chapel of Our Lady of Pena. The only thing that remains of that chapel is the main altar. The construction of the palace, which became the royal summer residence for a few years, was finished between 1847 and 1852. The architect was a German general and mining engineer who was also an amateur architect, Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, but it's believed that Ferdinand and his wife participated actively in the project, namely in the inclusion of many decoration details. A bit like Palácio da Regaleira, which was built a few hundred meters down the hill some 50 years after by a eccentric millionaire, it presents several decoration details inspired by a variey of influences, like Gothic, Manueline (a kind of Portuguese late Gothic), Moorish and Indian, some with a symbolic meaning.
Location (latitude, longitude): 38.78777,-9.3903
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Update: Following paura's request, I posted a WS that shows the face of the girl that appears on the top of the turret. |
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