Bussaco Palace

Bussaco Palace rises from the heart of the Buçaco National Forest in central Portugal, between Coimbra and Aveiro — a neo-Manueline fantasy commissioned in 1886 as a royal summer palace and hunting lodge for King Carlos I. The Portuguese crown turned to Luigi Manini, an Italian architect and stage designer whose other major Portuguese commission was Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, and the result is an elaborately decorated neo-Manueline complex: plans were approved in 1888 and the complex was finally completed in 1907, after nearly two decades of work.

The palace never served the purpose it was built for. The Portuguese monarchy fell in 1910, just three years after completion, and the royal family never lived in the building they had commissioned. Rather than standing empty, Bussaco Palace became a hotel in 1917 under the Alexandre de Almeida family — a conversion that preserved the neo-Manueline architecture and decoration largely intact, including frescoes and a notable collection of 19th-century tile panels depicting scenes from the Age of Discoveries.

The palace stands beside the former Discalced Carmelite convent, founded in 1628, whose monks were responsible for planting and walling the Buçaco Forest that still surrounds the property — the convent church and the Via Sacra, a processional route lined with chapels, still stand nearby. The forest itself, with its network of walking paths among trees the Carmelites began planting nearly four centuries ago, is as much a part of a stay at Bussaco as the palace building.

Around 60 rooms and suites, decorated in period styles ranging from 18th-century furnishings to Art Nouveau, occupy the palace itself — Classic rooms tend to be compact, while Superior rooms overlook the forest or the gardens. The overall effect is less a medieval castle stay than a grand early-20th-century hotel experience, built on an aborted royal commission and finished in the forest the Carmelites left behind.