Sintra: Quinta da Regaleira- 22 Mar 2024 Part 5

Wow! Welcome to Quinta da Regaleira. This place is a UNESCO site and is a mixture of architectural styles, like Roman, Renaissance and Gothic. Built between 1904 and 1910. It looks so mysterious, and I bet there's a lot of good stories. There are a lot of pagan and occult symbols everywhere. This is the place I was looking forward to the most, just for the Initiation Well.

Walking around the grounds offers a lot to explore. You can climb the towers and turrets. Maybe pretend you are a princess.

There was a little alcove in the middle with a fountain inside.

Walking back to the Initiation Well was very pretty.

There was a line to get into the Initiation Well. It was a very cool experience marred by the guides yelling at everyone to keep moving. To be fair, some people were trying their best to get perfect Insta pics.

This is about halfway down the well, looking up.

Same spot looking downward. This was not built for water but initiation purposes for the Freemasons or Knights Templar. It's meant to symbolize Dante's nine circles of Hell.

Once at the bottom, you walked into a lighted cave. There were different tunnels to explore, some with waterfalls, or ponds.

I thought this one was beautiful. This is where I would spend all my time if I lived here.

There was a little chapel with all these beautiful sculptures around it. And then there was this one (see below). What the heck?

We decided to check out the house. Honestly, I was happy to skip it because the grounds were so awesome. But ended up glad I went through it. Right away the tile work was beyond anything we had seen so far. This was the floor.

The house was of course ornate, but the details were unreal.

Such intricacy in all the work. Stained glass, concrete, tile, metal and wood.

The whole house had a heavy focus on wood. The carving was amazing.

This house has five floors, including a basement. It had an elevator to lift food from the basement to the dining areas.

It also has great views. We could see the Moorish Castle.

I'm going to be honest, I'm tired and my feet hurt. This was already so much walking but one more palace to go then onto the beach. We probably would have just skipped the next place but we had already bought tickets. Please see Part 6.