Buçaco (25/10/2014)

We (Simona, Marija, Francesca and I) took a bus from Coimbra at 9 and got in front of the Buçaco Palace at around 10. The area surrounding the Palace, which is now a Mata Nacional or national forest, used to be a protected woodland region belonging to a Carmelite monastery and surrounded by walls which are still intact. It has to be noted in fact that 2 popes, Pope Gregory XV in 1623 and Pope Urban VIII in 1643 issued bulls prohibiting women to enter and threatening with excommunication whomever harmed the trees. There are many interesting plants and trees coming from all parts of the world, and a really nice part is the Valley of the Ferns, a small path covered in beautiful giant tree ferns that reminds of Jurassic Park. The monastery that used to own the land built in 1628 is still there; the small chapel with a few of the monks cells still remaining, now incorporated in a luxury hotel. The hotel that we now see was first conceived as a royal residence for the king and queen of Portugal Louis I and Maria Pia, however the idea was scrapped and a hotel was built instead. Construction started in 1888 and ended in 1907, under the supervision of Italian architect Luigi Manini; and what came out was a beautiful romantic palace built in a Neo-Manueline style with resemblances of the Tower of Belem and Jeronimos monastery in Lisbon. A major battle in the Napoleonic Wars took place around the forest in 1810 when the French general Massena was defeated by the British Duke of Wellington who then spent the night at the monastery. So after taking a look of the garden outside the Palace we decided to walk around the forest and reach the highest point of the area. So we took a path that lead through the so called Via Crucis, a recreation of the way Jesus had to take with the cross on his back, among some chapels surrounded and covered by trees all the way to the top where a big cross stood at 549m with a beautiful view of the surrounding forest, the palace and the plains leading to Coimbra and then the ocean. Coming back down we got to the Palace again where we decided to have so we could see the interior too. It was then time to head back home, so we walked down to the town of Luso, famous for its natural spring water sold all around Portugal; we did in fact fill up our bottles with it before reaching the train station where we eventually took the train back home.

The Palace hotel

View from the top of the hill

The cross at the highest point