All pictures taken in 2018 at Sintra, Portugal.
The mountain castles
march Cypress and Cork soldiers,
heavy with history.
Sintra is a short hop away from Lisbon on the train. A welcome escape from the city into green Cypress lined hills, heady with the scent of cork trees baking in the sun. It is a bit of a tourist trap if I'm honest, but the draw for me was the many castles and palaces.
At the top of one hill lies the Park and National Palace of Pena, a Romanticist castle that is still used to this day for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials.
Maybe I'm a bit of a history geek 😂 but castles and palaces always inspire an escapism in me. I grew up reading Tolkien, Le Guin and a host of other fantasy authors, and wandering the gilded halls in the Palace of Pena instantly transported me to fantastical worlds.
In all seriousness this location provided descriptive passages and minute details for part of my fantasy setting in a short story I wrote a few years ago. The devil is in the detail they say, and this is no more true than in writing, and researching for an imagined location.
Over the next hill snakes the ramparts of Sintra's most ancient site, Castleo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle). These ruined ramparts hug the hilltop, spanning two of its highest pinnacles and incorporating the rocky outcrops into its walls.
The castle dates back as far as the 8th or 9th century when large swathes of Portugal were occupied by the Moors. However, the castle fell back under Christian rule when Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, reconquered it 1147.
The views are spectacular from the walls of Castleo dos Mouros. To the south you can see the river and Tejo to the west, while to the north the Palace of Pena looms in all its multicolored glory.
It really did feel like you were on top of the world wandering those walls, and I would preach caution to anyone who has a fear of heights 😂 This place was real 'game of thrones' territory, and it was easy to fall into daydreams of battling knights and marauding dragons.
“I watched the land for as long as I could, until it disappeared behind its shawl of mist, and until I had it fixed in my mind - unchanged, mysterious and beautiful”
― Aimee Friedman, Sea Change
The woods around the castle hold a reverent silence, almost like the trees chant in hushed tones of the passing stars and the voice of the wind. Most of my time at the castle was spent walking the walls in silence and drinking it all in, pausing occasionally to find a sheltered spot away from the wind to make some notes.
To read more about the aesthetics of true haiku, and the difference between haiku and senryu, please check out my post: Haiku Vs Senryu - The Aesthetics of Form
All pictures in this post are my own, taken in 2018 in Sintra Portugal. If you have enjoyed this Haiku, please check out my homepage 
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