Sintra on Pink Dust

In the 12th century, a crusader passing through Sintra wrote that drinking from a spring in the hills had calmed his cough. He wasn't the first to notice. He was just the first to write it down.

The spring he drank from is still there.

Fonte da Sabuga has been flowing since before anyone thought to record it. By 1406 it was already famous enough to appear in literature. In 1946, a company bottled and sold over 100,000 litres from it in a single year. Locals still queue with gallon jugs. The water hasn't changed. The mountain it comes from hasn't changed. Sintra, the one Ptolemy called the sacred mountain, the one the Romans designated holy ground, is still doing whatever it has always done to the water that moves through it.

The legend says anyone who drinks from Sabuga will remember Sintra forever.

This necklace carries that water.

Sealed inside a small gemstone bottle, collected by hand at the two-spouted Baroque fountain on Rua Marechal Saldanha, with deep blue tiles, a yellow sun at its centre, on the date stamped on your card. Strung on a bandana sun-bleached in the south of France, alongside gemstone beads chosen for how they carry light.

Your necklace comes with photographs taken at the source on the day the water was collected. The fountain, the mountain, the moment.

Some places get inside you. Sintra is one of them. 

Made for: Someone who isn't sick exactly, but has been carrying a low hum of something unresolved for longer than they can remember, and is finally ready to let it dissipate. 

83cm / cotton, gemstone, 18K gold plated / due to the handmade nature of this piece, each will have slightly different variations

Each necklace is one of one. Water sourced by hand in Portugal, and handcrafted and sourced in France. Dated and documented.