Eschewing the crowds at Sintra, we went to Mafra instead, where the royal residential palace is located. Mafra Palace. Commissioned by King John V in the early 18th century as a royal palace and convent, it nearly sent the nation broke. It was built with the proceeds of colonial gold and the slave trade in the Americas.

The palace is a stunning example of Baroque architecture as the King wanted to showcase Portugal's monarchy as a player in European pilitics. He brought in sculptors from Italy who schooled the locals in the trade, which was super handy considering they'd be needed to help rebuild after the earthquake in 1755, which didn't seem to touch the fairly recently built palace.

Covering an area of about four hectares, it's one of the largest palaces in Europe, but not all of it is open to the public. I have no idea how much a place like this costs to maintain but it must be a LOT.

There is a magnificent basilica featuring organs that are unlike any in Europe and have special music made just for them. The marble statues of various saints adorn each corner. Though I'm not religious in this way, the beauty of such buildings always makes me reverent of the human devotion to such places.

Of course, I loved the library. It's one of the most significant libraries in Europe, with over 36,000 rare books dating back to the 14th century! It did kinda annoy me that none were on display, not even copies. You could only see it from a small section at the end. What is super cool though is that there's bats inside that eat insects that could destroy the books. Bookish bats - I can see them being woven into a cool story.

Speaking of stories, if you've heard of Portuguese writer Jose Saramego, he based one of his books on themes that came to mind after seeing the palace at Mafra. He critiques the abuse of power by the ruling class. The socialist in me can't help think of this when seeing such places - I always wonder about the ordinary people whose lives are shaped by those in power.

Consider, for example, the fact that over 1000 workers died building the palace. They even had a hospital for the sick and dying workers there. The place took 13 years to build and used something between 15,000 and 40,000 workers daily to build it, with 7000 soldiers overseeing the work. Holy hell, that's nuts. I'd be so interested in the stories of people building the place but I guess that's lost to time whereas the royal stories and people like Napoleon, depicted in huge canvas paintings on the walls, survive.

I also found the fashionable-at-the-time hunters room to be macabre with the heads of deer and boars and furniture made from antlers pretty bonkers. The palace had a huge estate to hunt on that's still a beautiful park for wildlife and hikers to this day, with the sea on the horizon not too far away.

I did love some of the rooms with paintings on the walls, particularly the queens wing.

Honestly, I wonder how many ordinary people a place like this could house. It's still a grand old building overlooking the landscape, still standing whilst the world crumbles around it. I guess one day it'll eventually be overgrown with weeds or used to take shelter in as the world ends.

I can't help seeing buildings like this against the vast vista of time, politics, and the rise and fall of civilizations. The Roman ruins attest to that, don't they? Mafra palace is in it's infancy compared to them.