Villas and Gardens Around Lisbon

Itinerary

• Day 1 - Fly to Lisbon

  Flying to Lisbon, we will be transferred to the Turim Boulevard Hotel, where we stay for the duration of the tour. This evening we will have dinner together at a local restaurant.

• Day 2 - Palácio dos Marqueses da Fronteira, Quinta da Alegria & Quinta da Regaleira

  Palácio dos Marqueses da Fronteira was built as a hunting lodge and country house for D. João Mascarenhas around 1675 and has been in the family for 13 generations. The Duke of Wellington lived here when defending Lisbon from Napoleon’s army. We will see the house and its gardens, with great stairways, water tanks, coloured glazed tiles (azulejos) and decorative parterres. At Quinta da Alegria, immaculately restored by Elisabeth von Schmieder, Princess von Auersperg, we shall enjoy a delicious lunch in the very private garden with terraces, shaded walkways and flower filled borders. Across the road is the Quinta da Regaleira, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a romantic palace and chapel, and a luxurious park that features lakes, grottoes, wells, benches, fountains, and a vast array of exquisite constructions.

• Day 3 - Monserrate & Quinta da Piedade

  Monserrate is one of the most beautiful palaces in the Sintra hills, inspiring travellers, writers, and poets including Lord Byron, who decided to write about Monserrate in what later became a classic work of poetry: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The Moorish-style villa was imagined later, by Englishman Sir Francis Cook, who built a summer residence from the ruins of the neo-gothic palace in 1863. After falling into disrepair again, the estate was reopened in 2010 under the management of Gerald Luckhurst. After visiting the palace and gardens we will continue to Quinta da Piedade where we will have lunch with current owner, Teresa Schönborn, Condessa de Schönborn e Wiesentheid, who has continued to develop the Italianate gardens by planting Cypress trees in abundance, amongst the typical Sintra garden plants (Agapanthus, Hydrangeas, Camellias, to mention just a few).

• Day 4 - The National Palace of Queluz & Museu Nacional do Azulejo

  The National Palace of Queluz and its historical gardens are one of the most remarkable examples of the harmonious link between landscape and palatial architecture in Portugal. Built in 1747 at the orders of the future King Pedro III, the consort of Queen Maria I, the Palace of Queluz was initially conceived as a summer residence, becoming the royal family’s preferred place for their leisure and entertainment. We will have lunch at the palatial Cozinha Velha restaurant here before returning to Lisbon in the afternoon, where we will visit the wonderful Museu Nacional do Azulejo, devoted to the Portuguese art of coloured glazed tiles.

• Day 5 - Quinta da Bacalhoa & Return flight home

  A classic Renaissance garden with a Portuguese flavour, Quinta da Bacalhoa was the creation of the son of Afonso de Albuquerque, who had been a great mariner and Viceroy of India. He journeyed to Italy, became a connoisseur of Italian art, and was inspired by the gardens there to build his own villa on a peninsula south of Lisbon. It has loggias, patios and a formal water garden flanked by a hall with three pavilions and decorated with glazed tiles (azulejo) and terracotta busts. All is surrounded by their own vineyards and we will enjoy a wine tasting with lunch in the garden. In the afternoon we return to Lisbon airport for the flight home.