City Trips
City Trips
Mafra
Mafra is a pretty little Portuguese town that contains one of Europe’s largest and most extravagant palaces, the Palacio de Mafra. This vast complex includes a huge monastery, an ornate basilica and a library that contains over 36,000 ancient books and its own colony of bats!
The Palace of Mafra is a large palace and Franciscan monastery combined into one building in Mafra.
It is built around a basilica. Originally, the building was intended as a modest monastery for a group of Capuchin monks who would live there in sobriety. However, when more and more gold was imported from Brazil, the plan was changed and a megalomaniac building with many art treasures was erected. The palace was probably built in response to the construction of the Spanish Escorial. The palace was inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List on 7 July 2019.
The Tapada Nacional de Mafra was created in Mafra, Portugal, during the reign of king João V, following the building of the Mafra National Palace, as a park for royal and court recreation.
Covering over 8 square kilometres, the park holds different species of deer, wild boar, foxes, birds of prey and many others coexisting in an unusually rich and diversified natural habitat. A favourite of the Portuguese monarchy for hunting and other leisure pursuits, the Tapada de Mafra took on a noble connotation that has done much to aid its preservation and continuity.
An idyllic working farm in Portugal
FAMILY WINE ESTATE
Tel: +351 261 963 550