Weekly Photo Challenge: Indulge
I managed to remember to take a photo of this sumptuous breakfast at Casa de Sezim, a gorgeous hotel near Guimarães, before I indulged. All this was for just me and doesn’t include the scrambled eggs and bacon that came later! I didn’t eat all of it, by the way.
If you’d like to see my other attempts at the Weekly Photo Challlenges, click here.
For other people’s versions of ‘indulge’, follow the links in the comments at the Daily Post.
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Keeping it in the Family: Casa do Sezim Hotel, Guimarães
I have a certain fondness for quirky hotels, especially ones that I can afford to stay in. That’s why I couldn’t resist when Casa de Sezim popped up in my search for a hotel near Guimarães, the 2012 European Capital of Culture and the ‘birthplace of Portugal’.
Casa de Sezim is a mansion which has been in the same family since it was given to Afonso Martins in 1376 in recognition of his work and loyalty. Afonso’s family was no stranger to grandeur; one of his ancestors, Dom João de Freitas, used to hang out with the first ever king of Portugal, Dom Afonso Henriques.
Dom Afonso Henriques, first King of Portugal, in front of the castle in Guimarães
It’s believed that Dom Afonso 1 was born in Guimarães, which is one of the reasons the city is dubbed the ‘birthplace of Portugal’. The other explanation is that it played a strategic role in the events that led to the formation of Portugal as an independent country. Either way, Guimarães is deservedly proud of its history and well worth a visit. The well-preserved medieval buildings and narrow streets of its historical centre have earned it UNESCO World Heritage status.
Although Guimarães has plenty of hotels and attractions, I’m excited about staying in a country house that’s loaded with family history and artefacts.
Turning off the tarmac road is like stepping back in time. Centuries-old trees line the curved driveway that leads to the pink-walled complex of this ancestral home. I imagine myself in a horse-drawn carriage as I drive through the elaborate stone gateway into a square courtyard.
I may not greeted by a flurry of servants dressed in black and white, ready to take my luggage, but I do receive a warm welcome and a guided tour from José, part of the family that owns Casa de Sezim.
This isn’t just a place to eat and sleep; you need to allow time to explore the building and the grounds. I start with the series of living rooms that run into one another along the entire side of the mansion. The walls are covered with detailed scenes from India, America, the Netherlands and other countries. All of them hand-painted onto sheets of wallpaper that have stood the test of time with resiliently bright colours and relatively little damage.
The artist had never been to India!
The artist responsible for the India wallpapers had never even visited the country. He read books and filled in any gaps with his imagination to produce some remarkably realistic images.
One of my favourite scenes is in the Dutch room where whoever used to sit at the heavy wooden desk overlooking the gardens could also distract himself with a jolly depiction of a man being bounced into the air from a sheet held by a group of friends. It reminds me of the childhood birthday tradition of ‘the bumps’.
Desk with a view of the gardens, and 'the bumps'
Birthday bumps?
Each of the living rooms is filled with family pictures that span centuries. Portraits done in oils hang on the walls providing glimpses of the stately home’s former inhabitants and a record of changing fashions over the years. Family members from previous centuries are lucky if there is just one painting of themselves. Not like the most recent generations whose brightly coloured photographs dominate every flat surface, documenting weddings, family get-togethers and holidays.
Family pictures change over the generations
José tells me to come back in the summer when the hammocks are out on the long veranda and the swimming pool in the gardens is up and running. It’s an old house and the gaps under the heavy wooden external doors are unforgiving in the winter. It must cost a fortune to keep the bedrooms so toasty.
Talking of toasty, the room below the bedrooms is a treat in itself. Two very comfy sofas surround the gigantic open fireplace, making it a perfectly cosy place to relax with a drink from the honesty bar. Although the ancestral home has been converted into a hotel, the family’s main business is now wine production and it’s hard to imagine a better place to sample it.
You'll have to imagine the roaring fire...
However, this time, I’m here for the opening ceremony of the European Capital of Culture in Guimarães and I take a rain check on the wine so that I can manage the winding drive back up the hill in the dark. Imagine my delight, then, when I check out and José hands me a complimentary bottle to tempt me to come back. I don’t need any persuasion, I love this place.
For more information about prices, getting there and things to do and see, check the Casa de Sezim Hotel website.
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Eternal Love, Portuguese Style
Long before Shakespeare created Romeo and Juliet, Portugal had its own real life romantic tragedy within the royal family in the shape of Pedro and Inês. Their love story has become legend and inspiration for poets and artists throughout the ages. With each telling of the tale, it becomes harder to differentiate between fact and fiction but the elements of forbidden but everlasting love remain at its core.
And what better place to learn about their romance than the place where they met and played out their romance? That’s why I went on a guided walk through the woods and botanical gardens of ‘Quinta das Lágrimas‘ or ‘Estate of Tears’ in Coimbra. Nowadays, the ‘Quinta das Lágrimas‘ is a luxury hotel but it was once the site of the royal palace and the backdrop to Pedro and Inês’ affair.
And I do mean affair. At nineteen, Pedro, son of King Afonso IV and heir to the Portuguese throne, was married off to Constança of Castille in order to seal an alliance between Portugal and Spain. The problems started when Pedro fell madly in love with Constança’s lady-in-waiting, Inês de Castro. His feelings were reciprocated and their relationship became an ill-disguised secret.
A folly in the old palace grounds, built during the Romance period to mark a place where Pedro and Inês' probably met in secret, using a secret tunnel nearby
Constança tried to discourage them by making Inês godmother to one of her children, thereby making her involvement with the child’s father, Pedro, incestuous but even this wasn’t enough to keep Pedro and Inês apart. They had four children of their own, and by then their relationship had soured King Afonso’s alliance with Castile.
Constança died in 1349 but despite his father’s urgings to remarry, Pedro was only prepared to marry Inês. She wasn’t considered worthy of the throne and his father forbade the marriage. Pedro still refused to marry anyone else and King Afonso, at his wits end, took advantage of Pedro’s absence one day in 1355 and sent three assassins after Inês. The place where she is said to have been killed was later dubbed the ‘Fonte das Lágrimas‘ or ‘Fountain of Tears’.
There is a small natural spring here which feeds the estate’s farmland through irrigation channels. At its mouth, thin grasses sway in the flow of the water, representing Inês’ hair and the stones under the water have a reddish tinge as a result of her blood being shed.
Fonte das Lágrimas / Fountain of Tears, Quinta das Lágrimas
A poem is carved into a stone plinth next to it, informing visitors that the fountain and stream symbolise the river of tears cried by Pedro at the death of Inês. And that with the eternal quality of true love, these tears continue to give sustenance to the flowers and trees in the very gardens that bore witness to their passion.
Poem at Fonte das Lagrimas
It was Pedro’s grandmother, Saint Queen Isabel, who had ordered the irrigation channels to be built to supply the vegetable gardens of the palace and neighbouring convent. If you eat at the Quinta das Lágrimas hotel, you could well be feasting on the food of love because its kitchen garden is still fed by these channels.
There is a point along these watercourses, near one of the secret passageways that Pedro and Inês supposedly crept through to meet up in the woods, which is known as the ‘Pipe of Love’. Our guide, Branca, invites any loving couples to step forward. According to the legend, if two people in love simultaneously drink the water as it pours from one channel to a lower one, their love will be everlasting. No one takes her up on the offer and I’m not surprised. It would take some very complicated and undignified positioning to accomplish the task.
Pipe of Love, Quinta das Lágrimas, Coimbra
Pedro’s love for Inês lived on after her death and he waged war against his father for having killed her. He never forgave his father and when he became king in 1357 he had Inês’ body dug up and crowned as queen, claiming that they had married in secret before she died.
The posthumous coronation of Inês
The legend says that after forcing the members of his court to kiss her decomposing hand and swear allegiance to their new queen, Pedro tracked down her assassins and killed them, ripping out their hearts with his bare hands.
To ensure they would be together in the afterlife, Pedro installed Inês’ body in the monastery of Alcobaça and had his own sarcophagus placed at the foot of hers. I haven’t been there yet but it looks well worth a visit. The attention to detail on the matching tombs is further evidence of Pedro’s devotion, with exquisite carvings of scenes from their lives together.
Pedro's sarcophagus at Alcobaça Monastery by syvwlch on Flickr.com
If you want to take a guided tour of the grounds at Quinta das Lágrimas, you need to book ahead on +351 918108232. The gardens are open Tues-Sun from 10am to 5pm in winter or 7pm in summer.
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Castle of Dreams, Porto
“Are you doing anything special for Mike’s birthday?” asked a friend.
“Staying in a castle in Porto,” I replied, unable to completely wipe the smug grin off my face. Well it sounds good, doesn’t it? I’ve always wanted to live in a castle, even just for a couple of days. So when Castelo Santa Catarina Hotel (St. Catherine’s Castle Hotel) popped up in my search for a hotel in Porto, I couldn’t resist.
Okay, so this castle has never been home to royalty but it has got turrets and was built to impress. On returning to his home town of Porto from years of military service in Brazil, Commander António Pimento da Fonseca spared no expense in creating the house of his dreams. Sadly, not all his dreams came true; after his first wife died, his daughter and new wife didn’t get along and when he died the place was left to slowly decay.
When the current owner’s father saw the place, he had big dreams too. He envisioned a luxury hotel but before he could buy it, the 1974 revolution put a spanner in the works. By the time he was finally able to buy the property and set about converting it, the government had become keen to protect Portugal’s patrimony and heritage and slapped a preservation order on the building.
In hotel terms, this translates as no lifts, which, with the steep narrow staircases means it’s impossible to get a five star rating. A disappointment for the owner, perhaps, but fortunate for me because it means that room rates are within my price range.
Thankfully, guests aren’t expected to strain themselves; the receptionist takes charge of heaving our luggage up the several flights of internal stairs to our room. We follow him along the narrow, wood panelled corridors until they open onto a wider, brighter space with painted azulejos (tiles) between the bedroom doors.
Closing the double doors behind us, we take time to admire the hand painted period furniture and the views over the gardens and the city. We’re both happy to be indulging my castle fantasy; this place is a like a present waiting to be unwrapped.
Excited to discover more, we set out to explore the rest of the building only to get shooed out of the beautiful glass-ceilinged dining room corridor by the cleaners. We have to wait until breakfast the following day for authorized access but the inlaid furniture and decorations are worth waiting for.
The sitting room next door is available all day so we soak up the opulent atmosphere of the carved woodwork and ceiling whilst trying not to disturb a couple of other guests who’d nodded off in the armchairs. Unable to keep quiet for too long, we venture out like a couple of kids to poke around the grounds.
You can hardly see the castle hotel from the rather downtrodden Rua Santa Catarina but once through the gates, the realm of fantasy begins. The main building is like a tall, blue wedding cake thanks to the tiles that protect and decorate its various layers. At the top of the driveway, separated from the main house by the low boughs of a gigantic fir tree, is a private chapel. Even the underside of its curved roof tiles have been painted and, on the outer wall, a rather scary Mary is poised to destroy any threat.
Mary’s not the only painted lady to be found around the grounds; four saucy women represent the seasons and a few others look surprised by the front door. Not as surprised as I was to find a pair of Egyptian statues guarding the entrance to a grotto under the front of the building. I can only assume that Commander Fonseca spent some time in Egypt during his time at sea.
The nautical influence is evident in the patterned cobblestones of the courtyard, in the frosted glass of the dining room and on external staircases.
After a thorough investigation of the gardens, which turns up a lion, a cheeky stone monk and some stunning views over the city, we settle into the white swirly iron chairs for a beer and begin the birthday celebrations in style
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An Accidental Stay at Alcains Manor House
Have you ever made a mistake that’s turned out rather well in the end? For me, not looking properly at the last two letters in a place name meant that I booked a night in a hotel just outside Alcains, near Castelo Branco. Not Alcaide, where I’d planned to go to the mushroom festival.
Alcains holds a cheese festival every spring so when I spotted the advert for the mushroom festival, I automatically assumed it was the same place. I only began to wonder whether I’d got things wrong as we drove into the practically deserted town without seeing a single mushroom-related poster. The only event advertised in Alcains was a soup festival the following weekend.
Confused, we parked up and wandered around, looking for the parish church where the mushroom ‘megalunch’ was supposed to be happening. All we found were a few pigeons, a stray dog and a closed up hot dog stall. An old man wearing a cloth cap was staring, curious to know what we were up to. I headed across the street and asked him about the mushroom festival. He looked blank. If there was a festival, it certainly wasn’t in here Alcains.
Back at the car, I managed to get a wifi signal. I looked sheepishly across at my husband as I read the details again and realised my mistake. Luckily, the two towns are only a 30-minute drive apart so our plans weren’t completely ruined. And my husband milked my shame for all it was worth for the rest of the day.
After an afternoon of penance and mushroom fun, we drove back to Alcains to find our hotel, a lovingly restored manor house just outside the town. Despite being a bit tricky to find in the dark, once through the gates, the long driveway was lit up like a runway and Luís, the owner, was waiting on the doorstep to greet us and show us around.
Downstairs is taken up with living rooms and a dining room, as well as the property’s very own adjoining chapel. A grand, sculpted granite staircase leads up to more sitting rooms and the few bedrooms.
Ours was enormous, with a bevelled wood panelled ceiling, wood panelled walls and original wooden floorboards, with patterns laid out in darker wood. My husband has a thing for wood so he was happy even if some of the dolls did look a bit spooky.
Free to spend the evening in any of the four sitting rooms, we chose the one with the balcony, books, televisions and dvds, uncorked the wine we’d brought and made ourselves well and truly at home like Lord and Lady Muck.
Next morning, still experiencing delusions of grandeur, I took a stroll around the grounds, choosing to ignore the ugly disused factory that’s not quite far enough away from the manor house. I very much doubt it was there when Dom José Trigueiros Coelho de Aragão, known as the Farmer Duke, had it built in 1921.
Since then, the Solar de Alcains (Alcains Manor House) has been used as a health and respite centre, the family home of a local doctor and an administrative centre for the Sicel company after which it was closed up and neglected for years.
Luís Monteiro and his wife restored the building over 10 years ago, converting it into a hotel for rural tourism. It’s in need of a bit more work these days but not so much that we couldn’t enjoy the fantasy of dukedom.
Exploring in the warmth of the morning sunshine, I looked back at the house from the huge wrought iron gates and noticed the storks for the first time. Two massive black and white birds stood on their twig nests, preening themselves.
When Luís and his wife first began the restorations, there was only one nest but it was in the roof of the house. They had to get a crane to transport it to one of the trees as it weighed over 300 kilos. Each year, their stork population increases and currently stands at 10 or 11.
The storks keep coming back and I’d like to think that we will, one day. Maybe for the cheese festival next April.
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Hi, I'm Julie, a British expat living in central Portugal. I blog about my experiences of living in Portugal and travelling around this diverse and beautiful country. Whether you're thinking about moving to Portugal, looking for some out-of-the-ordinary trips within Portugal or just fancy a spot of armchair travelling, read on and enjoy.
