Eight in the morning on a fall sunday. The alarm bell rings and it is not a prank. We hop out of bed with the restrained energy of someone who is expecting an adventure: a walk by foot through the mountains of Sintra, in the company of the Walk Hike Portugal company.
“The Unexpected Gardens, Capuchos – Monserrate” is the name of the program for the day. To know better the Capuchos, the most important witness of Sintra’s primitive forest, and the gardens of Monserrate, by contrast, an exhuberant 19th century creation, with the visit to the monuments included and a seven quilometers walk in between, is the promise.
Duly informed by our guides, because we are new to these type of thing, we put the best shoes we can, dress something light and pack the essentials: water, something to eat and, of course, the camera.
We meet in Convento dos Capuchos, where the starting pistol is fired. Here we make contact with the first witnesses of the primitive forest of Sintra: arbutus, the chestnut trees, the hollies, among other specimens the ecclesiastical protected.
Still at the entrance we are introduced to Stag Beetle. This impressive bug doesn’t make an appearance (it seems his short life span, of about one month, makes the meetings difficult), but the noise it makes feeding, in a wooden box, while in the larval stage is the only thing needed to get an idea…
The convent entrance door offers two possible paths, symbolising free will, and is a good introduction to the forward thinking of these monks. With the choice made, we plunge in the realm of the fantastic. The franciscan convent merges with the surrounding green, as expected in a place built for someone who worshiped the Creator through what they considered His greatest work: nature.
Past the first door, the entire group, children and adults, enters and leaves the tiny cells, living emotions of dwarves in their enchanted houses. The guides keep calling us back to reality, highlighting details, such as the use of cork in the construction, a material known today for its insulating and anti-septical properties.
A walk in the forest corridor
Imbued of the franciscan spirit, we dive in nature. The only humanswe cross are those riding bycicles at high speed: the BTT practitioner who chooses Sintra for their sunday morning training.
The chosen path, from Capuchos to Monserrate, isn’t the shortest or most obvious, but it is the smoothest, without steep ascents or descents, and the most beautiful. Our lenses capture mushrooms of surprising sizes and colors, spiders weving their silky nets, slugs that dangerously cross our paths and who we save from being trodden.
The path starts to narrow, and we learn that it is becoming a single track, just for one person. With holding hands with nature, the walk gets more special. The thickening of the forest doesn’t frighten, on the contrary, inebriates with its calm, freshness and unforgettable fragrances.
The walk goes swiftly, with children jumping and the adults starting to feel their legs and feet. But with a few stops along the way to recover with the continuous amazement with everything that surrounds us we finally arrive the next destination: Monserrate Park and Palace.
A magnific fantasy called Monserrate
Making justice to the recent award for “Best Development of a Historic Park or Garden”attributed in the European Garde Awards, Monserrate is a stunner.
If in Capuchos we let the Hobbit in us wander around, here we guarantee the childen that this is the real palace of the Arabian Nights. But before we walk its corridors, pause for lunch. Some make a picnic in the grass field in front of the palace, others opt for the cafeteria. With recovered strength we march to the interior of the palace, work of the imagination of british millionaire Francis Cook who, in the 19th Century, from the ruins of a neo-gothic mansion, conceived is fantastic summer residence.
Reopened since 2007, the recovered palace, evinces the gothic, indian, and moorish influences in its different rooms. The overwhelming beauty of its interior sprawls to the exterior (or maybe it’s the other way round?), in one of the most impressive portuguesa botanical gardens. We feel tempted to roll on the grass and let our jaw drop before an araucaria, and in the various tones and odors delivered in the gardens of Japan, Mexico and the rose garden ..
At last, the light starts to fade, awakening us to the necessity of leaving this paradise. When can we come back?
Contacts Walk Hike Portugal:
Tel. 919 241 094
Site: Walk Hike Portugal
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/walkhikeportugal
Final note: Classified as level 2, in a scale of 1 to 5 (very easy to very hard), this was an accessible program, including for children. Any idea about tiredness and hurt feet is the responsibility of the author, who is little used to outdoor activities and didn’t put on the proper footwear.
