If you are looking for an example of sheer indulgence, rescued literally from the ashes of pure neglect, you need look no further than the Monserrate Palace near Sintra.
A flight of fancy, built in a Moghul-inspired designed for an English merchant in 1790, who abandons it just four years later. Rented out for short periods of time, but with no one to really care for it, the exotic mansion was finally rescued by an English knight – Sir Francis Cook – in the mid-19th century. The Cook family undertook a mammoth task – one still being maintained today by the trust which now owns and runs this beautiful, Romantic-inspired wedding cake of a building.
