World Heritage List | Portugal

Cultural Landscape of Sintra

Date of Inscription: 1995

Criteria: C (ii) (iv) (v)

Brief Description

In the 19th century Sintra became the first centre of European Romantic architecture. Ferdinand II turned a ruined monastery into a castle where this new sensitivity was displayed in the use of Gothic, Egyptian, Moorish and Renaissance elements and in the creation of a park blending local and exotic species of trees. Other fine dwellings, built along the same lines in the surrounding serra, created a unique combination of parks and gardens which influenced the development of landscape architecture throughout Europe.

This site on the World Heritage Centre website whc.unesco.org/en/list/723