This Saturday, October 12th, marks the opening of an exhibition that tells the story of how the Estoril we know today was built. "The Invention of Estoril" will be on display at the Cascais Municipal Historical Archive - Casa Sommer for about a year, until October 19th 2025.
The exhibition is based on a collection of over 2,000 glass plate gelatin negatives from the Palácio Estoril Hotel. These images have undergone restoration, organisation, description, and digitisation, and will be shown to the public for the first time.
Although the majority of the negatives have lost part of their emulsion, the centre of the images remains intact, allowing a glimpse into portraits taken between 1914 and 1955.
Through these photographs, visitors can discover how a pine forest area transformed into Portugal's chicest tourist destination of the time, with a luxury development that included housing, the casino, shopping galleries with the famous arcades, gardens, spas, the train station, and, of course, the Palácio Estoril Hotel, where spies, royal families, and aristocrats from around the world are said to have crossed paths.
For those who want to learn even more about the Costa do Sol, the book Palácio no Estoril: O Hotel Inspirador, written by Paula Bobone and published by Cascais City Council, was recently released.