Part of the joy of living in Portugal is being able to revisit places like Sintra. We are not trying to cram all the parks and palaces into a day or two, we can visit one or two and enjoy a leisurely trip and come back another time. In Sintra, there are a lot of parks and palaces. This is our fourth trip and our destination is the Palácio de Monserrate, which promises to be another whimsical, winsome, and large old home.
The walk to Monserrate from the train station, however, is over an hour, so we plan to hop a tuk-tuk and ask the operator to drop us at Palácio de Seteais. It's about half way, and we can make a morning of it. However, astonishingly, when we arrive we cannot find a ride. A local tour-guide hawker tells us that the roads are closed due to fire dangers (emergency services don't want roads blocked by buses), so the crowd has thinned, and the number of tuk-tuk drivers is reduced in proportion. We communicate this news to our friends, and our plans – well, we just adjust our meeting time.
The hawker helps us find a tuk-tuk on the other side of the station. In our desperation, the ride costs us quite a few more euro than I thought it should. But, the driver is convivial and the ride is pleasantly frightening, like a coaster ride rattling thru the falling alleyways and chugging to the top of the next hill. The driver (David) consents to take us to Seteais, sharing brochure images and pointing out his favorite views and landmarks along the way.
We don't intend to stay long at Seteais, but I had read that the grounds were picturesque, so I thought they'd be worth a visit, and a proper starting point for our day. Seteais dates from the late 1700's and is a pair of white, neo-classical blocks connected by a triumphal arch. The approach is from a long, level lawn, with signs aplenty demanding we stay off the grass, so in our new custom, we go around.
On the other side of the arch is a ramp up to a pair of columns, a long bench, and a view. The view is over a formal terraced garden, and to the great valley floor beyond. It looks out to the north, and I believe that's the way we came, bypassing the closed roads.
The walk is about two and a half kilometers (so says David), along the road that brought us. The pavement is narrow for two-way traffic, but it's sleepy and shady. There are many interesting features: gates, fountains, farms, and brief views out to the valley.
After about forty minutes, we arrive at the Guardaria of Monserrate. The iron gates, topped with 'quimeras', are easily the grandest on this road. There is a parking area and places for tour buses to pull over. After ticketing, the stone path plunges through the leafy, flowering gardens. The walls bordering the paths form a kind of aqueduct system, joining rustic catch basins and other small follies, like a stone 'dolmen'.
The view breaks open and rough stone evolves to clay bricks and tiles, and wood trellises. Below the basins, the collected water falls into a long koi pond. Down the path, the Palácio appears in a splash of sunshine past the canopy. There is a delightful welcome garden centered on the Fonte de Tritão, colored by scattered scarlet blossoms, and framed by date palms.
We quickly go round the building before entering. The Palácio is organized south to north (front to back): a main square block with an octagonal dome between two large round towers, all connected by nearly symmetrical wings. Its current general appearance is the work of British architect James Knowles and dates from the late 1800's – the building fell into disrepair and was restored in the 2000's. The windows are typically tall, trefoil pairs, within a trio of columns, within a gothic opening. The brackets at the roof overhangs create a lively rhythm of shadows as they chase the outline of the block, turrets, and wings.
The east-facing Terraço is the tourist entrance as well, but we loop around to the west. The valley is visible at the breaks in the foliage, and one imagines in the old days, wider gaps and broader prospects. Turning around the Torre Norte, we can peek the interior lines and silhouettes. Just before the west-facing Pórtico, there is an monstrous Metrosídero (Pohutukawa), a New Zealand Christmas tree, with a sinister-looking branching trunk, and unusual aerial roots hanging like thick, dull tinsel.
From the Pórtico, there is a vista out to the boulder-topped hills, and over a sweeping, steeply manicured Relvado (lawn). The exterior sets up a system of layered ornament, much of it in swirling, cake-frosting relief. The garden flowers are fixed on the column capitals, and the leafy motifs and fruit forms are frozen for the interior.
Entering from the Terraço, we are engulfed by textured archways and patterned surfaces. We step into the octagonal Átrio Principal. It is a three-layered affair, with a rose-colored cap, and a bathing Venus fountain at the center. The north-south Galerias extend in a series of domed bays; the inner bays are artificially lit, but the central bays are brilliantly skylit.
Toward the south are the Biblioteca (on the west) and the Sala de Jantar (on the east). The Biblioteca is nearly a photo-negative of the Sala de Jantar, the dark paneled window surrounds and walnut shelving relived by the cornice and enormous ceiling medallion. The Sala de Jantar is home to a solemn female figure, and the now-familiar layered ornament on the walls: stenciled surfaces, low relief along the arches, pattered infill, and dark outlines.
The Átrio de Entrada fills the lower level of the Torre Sul. Here, the decorative shell stands in the round, a lacy structure slipped inside another embellished form. The Torre is actually encased by stairs and storage spaces around the edges, creating an outer envelope. The view out to the Tritão fountain illustrates this feeling of veneers and screens, like looking out through tree trunks and branches.
Approaching the service stairs, from the landing we can peer into the the Despensa (pantry) adjoining the Sala de Jantar. There, a dumbwaiter lifts the cooked dishes from the Cozinha below. At the bottom of the stairs, the Cozinha resembles an engine room, with a big blue boiler over the open fireplace, and an impressive stove and cooking island, with brass fittings, heavy levers, and pipes. There are bright copper pots and pans laid out, gleaming in the morning light, counterpointed by a few large clay vessels on the floor.
Returning upstairs, on the west side of the Átrio Principal, there is a small Sala de Arte Sacra, set up like a chapel. There is a statue of Santo António holding a child and standing in a shallow niche. Above him in the ceiling is an extra-deep medallion, like the top of a chapel enclosure, which itself is set in a field of gold stars.
Opposite this room is the formal Escadaria (stair hall), with its spectacular carved-stone staircase. Seeing the grill and rail wrap into the newell at the bottom makes me want to stand and applaud the artisans.
The other rooms accessible from the Galeria Norte include the Sala de Estar facing west, and the Sala de Bilhar (billiards) facing east. These are spacious 'living' rooms, with the now familiar blankets of adornment – a darker color-way for the afternoon light, as in the rooms of the Galeria Sul. Each room features a mirrored arch over the fireplace.
At the end of the Galeria Norte is the Sala de Música, a dazzling ballroom with a stunning domed ceiling. The backlit tracery in the dome, with the edge trim and perforated ribs, creates a kaleidoscopic, almost weightless effect. The volume is ringed with thin, stone columns supporting circular and pointed arches. The roundels in the panels between the arches are lit from the tops of the columns, and feature ghostly busts of some titled or royal personages. In the archways that don't contain a window or doorway, there are stands for sculptural figures, though only two are occupied.
Historical exhibits fill the upstairs Quartos, and describe the development and restoration of the Palácio. I'm more interested, on this visit, to take in the abundant details and theatrical interior views: how each molded plaster cornice or carved stone grill does its part to lend texture to the whole, or how tiny fabrications knit one space to another. There is something compelling in the way soft, curvilinear forms are interpreted and repeated as hard, geometric elements. These relationships are echoed in the Parque, where the designs in the Palácio act as fractal elements within something greater.
Like rooms of the Parque, the gardens are organized into discrete areas. From the house, down the white stairway, we step into the Vale do Fetos (ferns). There are several characterful trees along the way, which seem to guard special locations – where to turn beneath a tunnel, where to fork uphill or down. The sunlight changes, and the brush grows thick. The trail levels off, offering views to the Relvado, and we are faced with a wide wall of wiry wood, which seems to be devouring some old crenellated barricade. This is an Árvore-da Borracha ('rubber' banyan tree), and like the Metrosídero, it's difficult to tell if it's sprouting up or down.
The largest folly in the Parque is the Capela, which is in the clutches of the Árvore-da Borracha. I thought I had read that this structure dated to the earliest occupation of this area (Capela da Nossa Senhora de Monserrate), but the literature says that this is a 'false ruin' based on the old chapel. Seeing the Capela, this makes sense, as it does not present as a functional place of worship – it simply suggests a church. The path blows through from side to side rather than from front to back, with doorways fracturing the jagged masonry. There is a small eruption of ferns in the nave, and a kind of ruined pool dispersing the dappled light. It's romantic, but disquieting, that as the forest consumes the building, there are no saints or virgins with crosses or halos putting up a fight.
Walking the trail to the western end of the Parque, we follow the switchbacks down to the Jardim do México. At the base of the incline, the greenery thins, the ground turns sandy, and the ferns harden into succulents and cacti.
The walkway cuts to the north, to the Roseiral. Today, lacking roses, the Roseiral is a disappointing, thorny hollow. So we take a breath and trudge up the Relvado to photograph the post-card views of the Palácio.
Of all the way-over-the-top palaces of Sintra, I can easily imagine a rich, British family living and delighting in this property. For us, it's a place we can return with friends, away from the seasonal crowds at Pena, and take in the architecture and the landscape at our own pace – which is exactly what we've done today, and maybe will do again next spring when the roses are in bloom.
cases: 28,337,295 global • 6,589,647 USA • 62,126 Portugal
deaths: 913,290 global • 196,327 USA • 1,852 Portugal
No comments:
Post a Comment