English Version | Your highness, mountain from the moon

I remember being a kid and walking around the Bruma Islands (Azores, of course), hearing from people who knew that those nine pieces of paradise had been populated by people from Alentejo, Beirao and France (which explains the pronunciation) and thinking “that can only be because no one has told the people of Sintra about this.” On the other hand, nobody leaves where they are to stay the same. Sintra is, in fact, a small island on the Continent (European, too). It's the Barrão Island, that everlasting white dome with which it dawns, leaves the people with “Lá para a tarde levanta” and sprays the hillbillies like someone tending orchids or any other bloom that grows in a vast, green and fertile mantle that peeks out over the Atlantic and welcomes the winds that blow from Cabo da Roca. It is from the meeting of these two, up the mountain, that the mist is born which covers the forest, gives it its luster and makes it the ideal habitat for so many trees (Parque da Pena alone has more than 340 species identified) which, in turn, lower the air temperature. This is a phenomenon that inspires the most modern theories of combating global but all the characteristics it lends to the area have attracted humans for thousands of years. In fact, we can say without risk of incurring the biased error determined by love of place, that this is one of the geographical locations in Portugal where the relationship between humans and nature is inseparable. And this charge, sometimes romantic, sometimes mystical - but always earthy enough to make use of the fertility of the floodplains that surround the mountain - has, throughout history, been collateral for the uniqueness of this true cardinal point, the westernmost in continental Europe.

One of the most passionate theories says that Olissipo, this Roman municipality in the province of Lusitania, with its capital in Emerita Augusta (Mérida), owes its location to the equidistance between Monte do Sol (Arrábida) and Monte da Lua (Sintra), from which it derived all its climatic advantages (and the light that is so much talked about around the world). But before the 2nd century BC, Celtiberian tribes, including the Lusitanians, had already settled there. Sintra, however, has vestiges much older than that. There are records dating back to the Neolithic period, which was characterized by the end of nomadism and the beginning of sedentarization, with consequent agricultural practices. This means that communities have settled there since ten thousand years before Christ. From the Atlantic Bronze Age, around 2,000 years before Christ, there are visible remains in the heart of the Serra de Sintra that attest to the settlement of communities (in the Parque das Merendas, next to the village) but also to the celebration of a faith, which proves a deep connection to the land, such as those found on Monte do Sereno. But it was after the Roman domination of the Iberian Peninsula that not only the town but also the vast area around it began to acquire the contours that would characterize its socio-cultural framework throughout its history, a place with exclusivist particularities that appealed to the elites. It became part of what was then known as the territorium of the civitas olisiponense (the land of the Roman citizens of Lisbon, whose full name was Felicitas Julia Olisipo), to which the Emperor Octavian (some say Caesar himself) attributed this enviable status in 30 BC. All the inhabitants of the Sintra region then became official members of the Galeria tribe, adopting Roman names, especially Lullius, the imperial gentile. Even those who came from other regions of Lusitania, with such autochthonous characteristics, are imbued with all possible Romanity, whether in its cultural, social, political, or economic aspects. Society there, in the shadow of the mountains and beyond, is deeply Romanized in its customs and habits, and there is even a road linking the most urban settlement to the countryside (Atrozela, Pisão and Cabreiro), and it is very likely that it would link from there to the main road that would lead to Olissipo, as evidenced by the many tombs present, inherent in the custom that the Romans had of placing their graves along the roads, just outside the settlements. Is it difficult to imagine the landscape of the mountains and its surroundings with vestals and men in togas, covering their heads with a cucullus to protect themselves from the morning fog? Nothing. 

In the 8th century, the ill-famed Moors arrived. This is where we pause to re-evaluate our notions and prejudices. Because we're curating about Sintra and that makes it easier. From the incomparably progressive kingdom of Al-Andalus, established on the Iberian Peninsula until 1492 (when it was renamed the Kingdom of Nazaires and confined to the city of Granada), we received almost everything. A civilization with scientific knowledge that was unheard of at the time, and with a gift for the arts like no other (so much so that the Middle Ages, the time of the poorest cultural production in Western civilization, only gave way to the Renaissance because it drew on the knowledge of medicine, philosophy and mathematics that the Arabs left behind in vast libraries - The first texts that explicitly refer to the town of Sintra (Xintara) were written by them, when until then authors who wrote in Greek and/or Latin only mentioned the “geological accident” that is the mountains. Let's forget for a moment about the Moorish Castle that still dominates the landscape today and try to imagine what the town would have been like in the hands of a civilization that gave us the greatest advances ever in agricultural, architectural, urban, scientific and artistic terms. People imposed themselves not by fighting, but by bringing the Visigoths into their midst, providing them with education, housing and medical care, even though they were Mozarabs (muxarab, i.e. “false Arab”) without many of the privileges of the upper classes. It is from this time (10th century) that Sintra was described by the geographer Al-Bacr and fixed by Al-Munim Al-Himiari (author of a prolix geographical dictionary at the time) as “one of the towns that depend on Lisbon in Andalusia, near the sea”, the most important urban center after Lisbon.

But the period that most shaped Sintra was the one that followed the so-called Reconquista, after the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031, which gave control of Lisbon, Santarém and Sintra to the King of León, Afonso VI. Various seizures and retakes followed and it wasn't until 1147 that both Lisbon and Sintra were definitively integrated into Christianity, in the context of the conquest of Almada and Palmela by King Afonso Henriques, aided by the Crusaders. This may seem like a mere detail, but it will be particularly important in the future, as some of these “Soldiers of the Holy War” would go on to become Templars (following the discovery of the legendary Temple of Solomon during their travels to the Holy Land). Known for their integration of different cultures and their knowledge into their own, it is now known that, during the reign of King Dinis, there was still a large Moorish community in Colares (in 1281, they complained to the king about the high taxes they were subjected to and King Dinis reduced them). Dinis reduced them). In 1157, King Afonso Henriques himself donated to Gualdim Pais, Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, several houses and estates on the outskirts of Sintra and a few “dwelling houses” near the town's palace. This was followed by a strategy of structural, political, social and economic organization of the territory, mainly through royal donations. Convents, monasteries and military orders came into being with ownership of manors, estates, watermills and vineyards. Rurality is an inseparable reality of Sintra, but the atmosphere begins to change after what would have been the first Portuguese case worthy of being featured in pink magazines and tabloids, if they weren't, at the time, refined Cantigas de Escárnio e Maldizer. Sintra became like a rare jewel, the kind you give as a gift. In 1287, King Dinis gave the town to Queen Santa Isabel, but shortly afterward it passed into the possession of Prince Afonso. In 1374 it was Ferdinand's turn to give it to Leonor Teles, whom he married in secret, but he still added Vila Viçosa, Abrantes and Almada to the package. Then came the dynastic crisis (1383-1385), Sintra was team Leonor Teles, who proclaimed her daughter Beatriz, married to the King of Castile, Queen of Portugal and Castile. The Battle of Aljubarrota took place and, after the defeat of Castile, Sintra was one of the last places to surrender to the power of João I, the Master of Avis.It was he who, as if in revenge, broke the tradition of donating the town to queens, but on the other hand undertook major renovation and expansion work on the Paço Régio (now the National Palace of Sintra), which from then on became one of the court's main residences, a place where the royal family lived. It was he who, as if in revenge, broke the tradition of donating the town to queens, but on the other hand undertook major renovation and expansion work on the Paço Régio (now the National Palace of Sintra), which from then on became one of the main residences of the court, a place that still fascinates today with the exuberance of its interiors (and, on the outside, the gigantism of its kitchen chimneys), a true ex-libris with a thousand years of history and the same number of tourists on the doorstep.

Not long before the Restoration, Sintra had around four thousand inhabitants. But in 1706, King João V began building the Palace of Mafra and, before this epic work was finished, Queluz saw the birth of another royal palace. Sintra thus found itself off the royal beaten track and only saw blue blood again when King Afonso VI was imprisoned in the Paço da Vila, in 1674, and in 1838, when the king-consort, King Ferdinand II, bought the Pena Monastery and a vast adjacent area. There were, however, a few artistic initiatives that were indicative of a kind of movement that was flourishing in those parts...Proof of this is the arch by the architect Costa e Silva, built in the Palace of Seteais, owned by the Marquis of Marialva, to commemorate the visit of the Princes of Brazil (João and Carlota Joaquina) and the visit of the absolutist King Miguel in 1830. It was in this same 18th century that a flock of foreign travelers imbued with a romantic spirit that was reflected in literature throughout Europe, discovered the magic emanating from Sintra, its nooks and crannies, forests and fogs, not always just in the morning. It's an irreplicable exoticism that shows itself, with its class, to an entire class. William Beckford arrived in the town as a guest of the 5th Marquis of Marialva, the kingdom's chief steward, and became a resident at his estate in Seteais. Princess Carlota Joaquina, wife of Regent João, returned at the beginning of the 19th century to acquire the Quinta and the Palácio do Ramalhão. Between 1791 and 1793, Gerard Devisme built his neo-Gothic palace on the extensive Quinta de Monserrate. Francis Cook was the second Englishman to lease Monserrate after Beckford and financed the construction of the “Chinese pavilion”, followed by a series of foreign magnates who settled there in palaces, mansions and chalets that they built or rebuilt taking into account the surroundings. But perhaps the most emblematic work is the Pena Palace, built on the remains of the 16th century Jerónimo Monastery and according to the exquisite taste of the Germanic Ferdinand II, married to Queen Maria II. The church, the cloister and some rooms were kept, but the rest of the architecture is so exotic that it didn't continue as the artistic current it should have been.It replaced the Palácio da Vila as the court's summer resort, at least until Cascais took precedence.In 1887, the railway linking the town to the capital was inaugurated and, at the beginning of the 20th century, Sintra became known throughout Europe as a summer resort for aristocrats and millionaires. Among these, Carvalho Monteiro (known as Monteiro dos Milhões) had a luxurious palace built on a farm he had bought from the Baroness of Regaleira, whose neo-Manueline architecture represents a milestone in the history of Portuguese revivalism. Among these, Carvalho Monteiro (known as Monteiro dos Milhões) had a magnificent palace built on a farm he had bought from the Baroness of Regaleira, whose neo-Manueline architecture represents a milestone in the history of Portuguese revivalism. Today, so much history and stories later, Sintra continues to fascinate as it did when it gave rise to the first Portuguese detective novel, The Mystery of the Sintra Road, written by two hands, Eça de Queirós and Ramalho Ortigão. Because it inspires. To inspire. Deep.

Translated from the original in Vogue Portugal's "Portugal With Love" Issue, published June 2024. Full stories and credits in the print issue. 

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