Palace Hotel

Bussaco's Palace Hotel is a fairy tale castle in the middle of an enchanted forest, offering you the unique experience of staying in a real royal palace, considered, since 1917, as one of the most beautiful, romantic and historic hotels in the world. The palace was built in 1888 for the last Kings of Portugal, and is located two hours from Lisbon and one hour from Porto, inside the Mata Nacional do Bussaco, a natural and botanical ex-libris of Portugal.

After the Extinction of the Religious Orders, D. Maria Pia intended to create a royal palace in this space, to rival the Pena, but the plans did not materialize and the then Minister of Public Works, Emídio Navarro, very connected to Bussaco, proposed the construction of a People's Palace, that is, a hotel (ANACLETO, 2004, p.66). To this end, he commissioned the scenographer Luigi Manini, who finished the first watercolors in 1886. The plan was approved in 1888 and the works began that same year. The old church, around which the primitive cells were located, has been preserved within the new building, as well as some of the convent structures. Manini was inspired by the Torre de Belém and the Cloister of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém, to create in Buçaco a work that cannot be considered only as a neo, but as an eclectic recreation that denotes historicist aspects, but little related to the the return to the past or to romantic ideas (ANACLETO, 2004, p.66).