Quinta da Regaleira

The estate extends across four hectares with winding paths through terraced gardens leading to chapels, grottoes, fountains, and artificial lakes, while the five-story palace in Romanesque and Gothic styles features towers, battlements, and ornately carved facades of local limestone.

Between nineteen hundred four and nineteen hundred ten, millionaire António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro worked with Italian architect Luigi Manini to transform an estate from the seventeenth century previously owned by the Baroness da Regaleira into an elaborate complex that hosted cultural events in nineteen seventeen and opened as a museum in nineteen ninety-nine.

The palace combines architectural references to the Templars, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons with Portuguese building traditions, creating a space for philosophical contemplation and esoteric studies that reflects intellectual currents of the early twentieth century.

The estate opens daily at nine thirty and closes at nineteen hundred during summer months and seventeen hundred during winter, with audio guides available at thirty locations, while tickets can be purchased online or at the entrance and comfortable shoes are recommended for the hilly terrain.

The grounds contain two initiation wells connected by underground passages, with the main well featuring a spiral stone staircase ninety feet deep divided into nine landings that symbolically reference Dante's Divine Comedy and the journey through underworld, purgatory, and paradise.

Location: Sintra (Santa Maria e São Miguel, São Martinho e São Pedro de Penaferrim)

Inception: 1697

Architects: Luigi Manini

Architectural style: Gothic Revival, Neo-Manueline

Fee: Yes

Operator: Sem afectação

Part of: Cultural Landscape of Sintra

Opening Hours: April 01-September 30 09:30-19:00; Oktober 01-März 31 09:30-17:00; Dezember 24-25 off

Phone: +351219106650

Website: http://regaleira.pt

GPS coordinates: 38.79635,-9.39603

Latest update: December 14, 2025 22:31