Flashback: We romped through hell in enchanting Sintra, Portugal

Nov. 24, 2019: We descended to hell – through all nine levels – and had such fun we repeated the journey two more times. You can easily do that at Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal without the everlasting side effects that accompany the truly evil.

The small town of Sintra – a 40-minute train ride from Lisbon – is the focal point for Portugal’s magical land of palaces. You can visit a dozen, including a Disney-style imaginative palace, a semi-ruined fortress covered in moss, several stately manor homes and – our favourite – the dripping-with-masonic-symbols Quinta da Regaleira.

The Regaleira palace was built between 1904 and 1912 by millionaire Antonio Augusta Carvalho Monteiro and his Italian architect, Luigi Manini. Encrusted with intricate stonework, towers, and Gothic windows, it’s a beautiful smallish palace, but the 10-acre park running up the hill beside it is what enchants visitors. Symbols of Freemasons, Knights Templar, Rosicrucians and Christians are entwined into the mysterious wonderland of gardens, towers with twisting staircases, plazas, balconies, benches, fountains, grottoes, meandering paths, ponds, a chapel, an aquarium built into stone, caves, secret tunnels and wells.  

The Initiation Well is the highlight. Stepping past a rotating stone that hides the entrance, we descended a circular staircase that surrounds the well, which represents the descent to hell. Our first trip down, we kept sticking our heads through the arched windows to see the tile mosaic of the Knights Templar cross intertwined with a compass at the bottom.

Ninety feet below the surface, we stood gawking with our heads craned upwards towards the sunlight. Moss highlighted the stonework and other heads peeked over the railing.

Then we turned to enter the tunnel that meanders underground, splitting here and there into other tunnels leading to several exits. Since the park is built into a hillside, the tunnels are level. Rough limestone walls and columns, with spots here and there where we had to duck, made me feel like Indiana Jones, minus the cobwebs, spiders and head-severing traps.

Our first time through, we kept to the right at the first fork and found ourselves at the bottom of the other well, called the Unfinished Well. (The wells are also called ‘inverted towers’ since they were never used as water sources.)

We climbed the straight staircases built around the Unfinished Well, noting the cruder stonework, and popped out…somewhere further down the hill, delightfully turned around.

We looked at each other and grinned. “Let’s do it again!” we both said.

We followed pathways through the maze-like gardens, trying to find the Initiation Well entrance again, but found ourselves on a large plaza outside the Portal of the Guardians.

Our challenge was trying to make sense of it all, since English guided tours had ended for the season. (We visited on Nov. 24, 2019.) We had the map, but it didn’t explain anything beyond “A trip to Quinta da Regaleira is a journey into an imaginary universe of symbolism and metaphor.” While pausing on a balcony to look out over the gardens, I heard a private guide talking to a small group. In English! I flagrantly eavesdropped and took notes.

No one knows for sure what the Initiation Well was used for, but the experts guess that it was for masonic initiation rites, Guide #1 said. The staircase has nine landings – those are what represent the nine levels of hell, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

“I don’t know if it’s your first time, but let’s go to hell, my friends,” said Guide #1. “You can’t be claustrophobic – it’s all open. Come on! Hell is a nice place, I swear!”

After they moved away, I chanced to hear another English guide.

Guide #2 said the well represents the bad parts, the dark side of your soul and emotions like jealousy and greed. As you descend, you face your dark side, deep within the earth, so that you can understand it. After passing the cross at the bottom, you are purified and then reborn when you emerge from the tunnel into the light, where there is sun, rain and life.

“With the well, you go through the earth and come back to the surface to be reborn,” he concluded.

Armed with this information, we made a more educated second descent to hell. I counted the landings this time. Sure enough – nine. Then we took a different branch of the tunnel and emerged in a grotto, with a waterfall splashing down before us. We edged to the side of the waterfall and looked out over a pond covered with bright green duckweed. I edged out carefully onto tall narrow stepping stones that crossed the pond, not wanting to fall into the green stuff.

I was still confused about the Knights Templar versus Freemasons and had to resort later to Wikipedia, which told me the Knights’ full name is “The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta.” To be admitted to the brotherhood of Freemasonry, you must profess belief in a supreme being, regardless of your religion. Freemasons who want to join the Knights Templar must be Christian. So, the Knights Templar are a Christian subset of the Freemasons.  

The Pope disbanded the Knights Templar in 1312 but, in Portugal, King Denis created the Order of Christ in 1319 for the knights, since he refused to persecute them as other Catholic countries had done. The Order of Christ carries on today. Rosicrucianism, symbolized by a rose on a cross, is another brotherhood whose members have wisdom handed down from ancient times.

“Hey, Bro” would have been a valid greeting when meeting Carvalho Monteiro on the street, although he probably had a plethora of secret handshakes for fellow knights, masons and rosy cross members.

After our third descent to hell, we popped out into daylight at the Eastern Grotto. Maybe we really were reborn because we certainly felt like kids romping through a wonderland.

We explored the romantic fairy-tale gardens, taking random turns down pathways and steps to see where they led. Tennis courts and greenhouses were the more traditional features of a millionaire’s fanciful estate, but we also climbed winding staircases up towers and waved from the top, stuck our heads into caves, and rested on benches surrounded by intricate stonework. An aquarium was built into an enormous boulder.

Finally, we reached the Roman Catholic Chapel. Unfortunately, no one was allowed inside so we also couldn’t visit the crypt in the basement or the tunnel leading to the palace. Instead, we peeked in the open doorway at the scenes of Christ’s life depicted in the frescoes, stone carvings and stained-glass windows. A stone all-seeing-eye – a major Freemason symbol – is carved into the entrance ceiling. The tile floor features Knights Templar crosses.

At the end of our visit, we finally toured the palace and learned more about the man who had envisioned and created this quirky playground.

Carvalho Monteiro was born in 1848 in Brazil, went to university for a law degree in Portugal, went back to Brazil and married, then finally returned to Lisbon in 1876. After he inherited the family fortune, he bought Quinta da Regaleiro in 1893 to enlarge and transform it into a summer home.

After years of planning, work finally began in 1904 and was largely complete by 1912, although work continued there and on the grounds until Carvalho Monteiro’s death in 1920. The exterior is a conglomeration of Roman, Gothic, Renaissance and Manueline architectural styles, with gargoyles, an octagonal tower, and intricate stonework.

Inside, the rooms were mostly filled with historical exhibits and displays, rather than furnishings. A photo showed him with butterfly nets, a display of mounted butterflies and other entomological gear. He loved the opera and collecting books, art, clocks, musical instruments, and shells. He also studied classical languages.

We toured through the dining room, billiard room, Renaissance Hall, and various connecting rooms, marvelling at the splendid architectural details: finely carved wood ceilings and doors, delicate ironwork, brass lion doorknockers, tile mosaics, inlaid wood floors, and elaborately carved stonework around doors and fireplaces. Sadly, the top floors of the palace were closed for renovation.

Quinta da Regaleira was our favourite in Sintra’s land of castles. Here are our visiting tips:

• Set aside at least three hours for a visit.
• Check first to see if English tours are available. If not, check at the Sintra Visitor Centre to see if you can arrange a private guide. A good guide would have vastly enhanced our visit.
• Quinta da Regaleira is an easy, level, one-kilometre walk from Sintra’s centre. Save your Euros for a ride up the mountain to visit the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace.