The first visit to Sintra
In the weekend when Gaurav, the Indian trainee , came to Lisbon, we went going to visit also Sintra, the small traditional village with many castles and palaces. We saw the Mourish Castle and the National Pena Palace.
The Mourish Castle
The Mourish Castle is on a high hill in Sintra village, near to Lisbon; it´s an attraction for tourists. As the it´s name is telling, the castle has a Mourish origin, but it is the result of a reconstruction made in the XIX century. The Sintra village with the National Palace and also the Pena National Palace can be seen from the castle.
The Mourish CastleInitially, the castle was probably built by the Mours between IX and X century. The Arab chronicles describe Sintra region as being very rich in crops, the castle being one of the most important in the area.
In 1447, after the conquest of Lisbon by the king Afonso Henriques, the Mourish garrison of the castle surrended without resistance. The king sustained the region´s development.
The decline of the castle started in XV century, when the majority of the people moved to Sintra village, and the castle lost any military relevance and was abandoned by it´s inhabitants.
In 1830 started the castle´s renovation, in a style inspired from the Middle Eve, specific to the romanticism. Thus the castle got a fairy tail atmosphere.
In a tower
Gaurav & Ovidiu
Pena National Palace
Pena National Palace is an expresion of the romanticism of the XX century in Portugal. When the earthquake of 1775 devastated Lisbon and the regions nearby, Pena monastery got in ruins, but the chapel remained untouched. Those ruins from the top of the mountains of Sintra amazed the young prince D. Fernando, that decidedto build here Pena Palace, the summer residence of the Portuguese royal family. The style in which the palace is built is a mixed one, with different influences, which creates contrasts, for example: a window in Manuelin style next to a door in Mourish style.
It was a beautiful day; besides the fact that we visited, we had the time to become even better friends with Gaurav. We promissed that we´ll go soon to Coimbra to visit him and to show us the city :-).
A little tired all of us, in the evening we took the train to Lisbon. We didn´t see everything in Sintra, of course, for this a day isn´t enough, but we´ll come back :-)
A little tired all of us, in the evening we took the train to Lisbon. We didn´t see everything in Sintra, of course, for this a day isn´t enough, but we´ll come back :-)
posted by Diana @ 16:16
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