As in all the royal palaces, the most impressive and lavishly decorated room here is the throne room in baroque style with beautifully painted ceiling and walls showing virtues that the king should possess like perfection, tranquility and so on, not that Joao V did. Next door are the oratory and private chapel with painted ceiling, and Great Hall with large paintings and 17th century cupboard of dark wood and leather furniture with flowers and royal symbols. King’s bedchamber has furniture and bed of the times of the 1st empire, large almost wall size mirror and light color frescoed ceiling. The corridor from the king’s apartments to queen’s apartments has portraits of Vasco da Gama, Luis de Camoes and Portuguese kings as well as frescoed ceilings and walls with mythological scenes. The corridor is 232 meters long and in the middle of it is the royal seat which gives you a great view of the basilica interior.

On the other side of the corridor is queen’s tower with paintings that were supposed to be hung in the basilica but were replaced by the sculptures. Rooms in queen’s apartments are decorated in the 19th century style and the last of Portuguese royals lived here until 1910. There is a billiard room, collection of musical instruments from Madeira, hunting room with lots of horns on the walls and furniture, dining room with royal monograms on the chairs. A large library holds a collection of 36,000 volumes dating from 15 to 18th centuries in various languages and divided in subjects. The library has a cross shape and the back part has religious books, the books at the entrance are on law. Baroque bookshelves weren’t finished, they were supposed to be gilded but the monks had no money. Books are well preserved because the special wood kept temperature even and bats would eat the insects.

Mafra is located not very far away from Lisbon and is an easy drive along toll expressway A8 out of the city. As you drive into the town of Mafra, you see the tops of the bell towers first and then it appears – a large palace of white stone and in the middle of it - neo-classical Basilica with porticoed façade, columns and bell towers on each side, symmetrically followed by 3 floors ending in tower-like edifices. Tourist office is located in the same building.

The basilica in the middle is Paroquia de Santo Andre built in 1717-1755 by a German architect Ludwig and it is a mixture of neo-classicism and German baroque. What this means is that the church is a very cold and austere construction which is nevertheless very impressive. An improved and somewhat more intricate version of this church can be seen in Estrela basilica in Lisbon.

In the back of the basilica there is pink marble altar with painting in the middle and white marble rays of sun and crucified Christ at the top. The floor near the altar is covered with floral designs of various colors made of marble from Sintra and above is coffered cupola with pink and grey rosettes. Organs on each side of the altar of walnut with baroque features – gilded bows and musical instruments – are the most interesting feature of the church. All the chapels have statues of saints. Originally the chapels were supposed to have paintings but they are currently hanging in royal apartments of the palace and the statues were made to replace the paintings.

Palacio was built by Joao V, one of the most prominent of Portuguese kings. He promised to build a monastery for Franciscan monks if they pray for him to have a son. When his son was born in 1717, the first stone was laid. The construction didn’t finish until 1744. Everything surrounding the basilica was a monastery and the top floor was occupied by the royal apartments. There is a large pharmacy and next door is the hospital which was very modern for its time. King and queen lived in separate towers until the end of 18th century, later they would live in the same tower, the warmer of the two. Upstairs there are royal apartments. The rooms here are decorated with ceiling frescos and 18th century Brussels tapestries – Joao V ordered 200 of them and most were taken to Brasil and as well as a large portion of the original collection of the palace were lost.

Continued in Part II