Open ground near Linhó
Linhó, a village in the hills above Sintra, grew around a summer house bought by Marcelo Caetano, Portugal's last prime minister under the Estado Novo, who used it from 1958 to plan his return to power. The same village later hosted a 1999 Bilderberg Meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Penha Longa Resort.
A dictator's summer house became a street name
You're standing near Linhó, a village of gated estates and golf resorts about half a mile from where you stand.
One of its residents was Marcelo Caetano, Portugal's last prime minister under the old dictatorship known as the Estado Novo. Caetano bought a summer house here after losing his job as a university rector.
Starting in 1958, Caetano used that house to plan his return to power. Ten years later, he became prime minister. A street in Linhó still carries his name, despite efforts to have it changed.
Decades later, Linhó hosted a very different kind of power meeting. In 1999, the Ritz-Carlton Penha Longa Resort, inside the gated community of Quinta da Penha Longa, held a Bilderberg Meeting, the closed-door gathering of political and business leaders from Europe and North America.
A Muslim quarter gave way to a Christian cemetery
Long before Linhó's gated estates, this hillside belonged to a different story. Below the Moorish Castle, less than a mile from where you stand, Sintra's old Islamic quarter stood until King Afonso Henriques retook the region.
After the conquest, his forces tore down that quarter. In its place rose a Christian burial ground, serving the Church of São Pedro de Canaferrim. Diggers later found it had stayed in use for about 300 years. Neolithic tools turned up in the same ground, left by people who worked this hillside thousands of years earlier.
Linhó pairs Michelin dining with old monastic hospitality
Today, Linhó mixes old money with new food culture. Two Michelin-starred restaurants, LAB by Sergi Arola and Midori, draw diners from across the region. The village still holds its Christmas markets and an annual beer festival, carrying on a tradition of hospitality that stretches back to the Hieronymite monks of the Igreja da Penha Longa.
The golf courses and gated gates you can see now stand on ground that held a dictator's ambitions, a First Lady's ribbon-cutting, and centuries of buried history before either.
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.