12/21/2023 0 Comments Abandoned castle in portugal![]() Together we crept into the building, making our way deeper inside until the darkness fully engulfed us. When Dave joined my side, I paused and listened, trying to ignore the shivers that running up and down my spine. ![]() I switched on my phone’s torch and took a step forwards. I didn’t want to take anything from the Monte Palace, but I was intrigued to see if I could find another one of its secrets. Online, you can read an account from an urban explorer who discovered a binder of unpaid bills inside the hotel and kept it as a souvenir. Still, I had been emboldened by my successful climb to the roof and was determined to discover a Monte Palace gem for myself. I definitely got those creepy vibes when I was wondering around. In unsurprising news, the Monte Palace Hotel was once used as the set for a horror film in the past. Unsurprisingly, very few people chose to have that experience.Ĭome inside if you’re longing for a good stabbing The hotel experiences a whopping 200 days of rain per year, which meant an awful lot of guests would have been paying a lot of money to shiver on their balcony and experience what it’s like to be engulfed in clouds. Those views, however, would have been rarely visible.Įven though we somehow managed to luck out with bright blue skies when we visited, this part of Sao Miguel is more likely to be shrouded in grey than not. Once you arrived, you’d have to amuse yourself by either driving yourself around the island or by sitting on your balcony and gazing out at the gorgeous views. On top of that, its location on the island was remote, which meant guests would need to hire a car to get there, and there wasn’t anything within walking distance. It didn’t make sense to build the Monte Palace in either this location or at this time.īack in the 1980s, the Azores wasn’t on anybody’s radar when it came to international tourism. Quite frankly, opening this hotel was a poor business decision. Yes, just 18 months after it opened, the owners declared bankruptcy and the building was left to the elements. Ironically, the Monte Palace hotel received the award for being Portugal’s finest on the same week that the hotel closed its doors for good. The large complex featured two restaurants, a bar, nightclub, hairdressers, bank, and 88 rooms that overlooked either the Atlantic Ocean or the twin lakes nestled in the caldera of the volcano. ![]() So, investors invested and builders built, and this 5-star resort was open for business in 1989. Back then, it was more expensive to fly from Europe to North America than it was to these beautiful Portuguese islands. You approach it on the single winding road, where it looks more like a concrete prison than the 5-star hotel that was once voted the finest in all of Portugal.īuilt in the late 1980s, the Hotel Monte Palace was intended to be the ultimate in luxury travel for the Azores: an island chain that hadn’t yet begun to attract tourists from outside Portugal. Unlike the vibrant green vegetation that surrounds it, this shell of a building is grey, unsightly, and falling apart. The building once again stood empty, with no signs of restoration or salvation.On the rim of a now-extinct volcano lies an eerie reminder of what could have been. Instead of answering their calls, they called the police to evict them. They campaigned for renovation, but the new owners were unreceptive. The activists were enraged by the lack of action to preserve this historic building. An American creditor purchased their debt and property portfolio.Ī group of activists occupied the building. Around 6 years later, this real estate group filed for bankruptcy. Even with demolition plans in hand, no work began on the site. It is unclear why this company never began demolition.Īnother real estate group bought the site a year later. The city granted the necessary demolition plans. The plan was either to turn the palace into flats, or a luxury hotel. They had plans to renovate the property and convert it into luxury accommodation. The company paid around 20 million Euros for the site. In the mid-2000s a real estate company bought the Dictatorship Palace.
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