Mafra and Sintra: Choose 3 of 6 Palaces to visit on private tour

We start at your hotel heading towards an unforgettable day. Sintra is 30 km from Lisbon. Its micro-climate guarantees permanent freshness to the town and the growth of fantastic vegetation, making this a mysterious and deeply romantic place. The Pena National Palace, Quinta da Regaleira and Monserrate Palace stand out as the main monuments. Arriving in the town, we drive to the top of the Serra de Sintra and the Palácio da Pena, built on a rock 500m above sea level, dominating the entire coast as far as Lisbon. It represents one of the best expressions of 19th century architectural Romanticism in the world, and is, in fact, the Europe's first romantic palace, built around 30 years before the charismatic Schloss Neuschwanstein, in Bavaria, Germany

Quinta da Regaleira, located in the heart of Sintra, is a monument full of mysteries and symbolism. Thw Owner Carvalho Monteiro, also known as Monteiro dos Mírios, was fascinated by alchemy, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and the Templars. The farm was transformed into a place full of mystical symbolism. Quinta da Regaleira was built to be a space for contemplation, meditation and celebration of ancient mysteries.
Today, Quinta da Regaleira is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Sintra, offering visitors a journey full of mystery through secret tunnels, exotic gardens, lakes, caves and buildings, such as the famous Initiatory Well. This spiral well descends 27 meters into the earth and is surrounded by a staircase, also built in a spiral.

A retreat for writers, Monserrate attracted countless foreign travelers, mainly English, who praised its beauty in travel stories and prints. When Francis Cook, a wealthy 19th century English industrialist and great art collector, visited the site, he was fascinated. Out of that passion was born a masterpiece of Romanticism: the Park and Palace of Monserrate.

The current Sintra Palace is made up of many royal palaces. It is a set of buildings that were built, added and adapted over the centuries, with the date of the foundation of the oldest palace being an enigma still unsolved today. Most likely, the first building was built around the 10th or 11th century, when Sintra was Islamic territory. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Paço de Sintra was the center of a territory managed by the Queens of Portugal, but it was also one of the favorite spaces of Portuguese monarchs. The abundance of game in the region, the freshness of the climate during the summer months or the need for refuge in periods of plague in the capital made Paço de Sintra a frequent destination. Keeper of memories and witness to exciting events in the history of Portugal, Paço de Sintra offers visitors the opportunity to travel back in time and meet other lives so different from ours.

The Palace of Queluz with a beautiful decoration filled with pieces of enormous value, became the official residence of royalty, especially the Portuguese prince regent, the future D. João VI, as well as his family, until the flight of the royal family to Brazil due to the French invasions. In this palace was born D. Pedro IV or D. Pedro I of Brazil. It also served as a discreet place of imprisonment for Queen Mary I, "Mary Louca", while her madness continued to worsen after D. Pedro's death.

In the village of Mafra, it is impossible to remain indifferent to the monumental Palace of Mafra, which was erected by D. João V in 1711. Known also as a place of welcoming people, there is also the famous Tapada de Mafra with an area of 1187 hectares and surrounded by a wall with a length of 21 km. The Tapada has a great diversity of animal and vegetable species.
The palace, located in the center of the village, is the most luxurious national convent in the Baroque style and also houses, in addition to the Convent, a Basilica and the Royal Library. The Library displays a precious collection of more than 40,000 books with gold bindings, including the first edition of the Luís de Camões Lusíadas. It also has a set of six organs, unique in the World for size and beauty.