Quinta da Regaleira
Regaleira Palace, situated at the historic centre of Sintra, is also part of the built heritage included in UNESCO's world heritage list as "Sintra cultural landscape". Sintra The origins of this place date back to 1697, when the property was bought by José Leite, but it was only by the late 19th century that the history of the Palace and Gardens begins. In 1892 Carvalho Monteiro, an eccentric capitalist that had made a huge fortune in Brazil, bought the property and hired the Italian architect Luigi Manini to conceive a place that gathered, on the one hand, a sum of artistic currents Gothic, Manueline and Renaissance and, on the other hand, the glorification of national history influenced by mythic and esoteric traditions. A great variety of Masonic symbols is present in Regaleira Palace and Gardens. An important example is the magnificent "Poço Iniciático" Initiation Well, looking like an upside down tower, where at every 15 steps a plateau is reached, in a total of nine leading to the depths of the earth. The nine plateaus remind the nine circles of Hell, the nine sections of Purgatory and the nine heavens of Paradise, as designated by Dante. Monday to Sunday, from 10h00 to 18h30 last entrance at 18h00Prices with guide: 10 ⬠standard; 8 ⬠> 65 yr; 5 ⬠9-14 yr; Free < 9 yr. Prices without guide: 6 ⬠standard; 4 ⬠> 65 yr; 2,5 ⬠9-14 yr; Free < 9 yr.">
