Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
C1
4
Sé
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Sleeping
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Eating
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B1
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Transmontano
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Sights
Palácio de Mateus
( 259 323 121;
www.casademateus.com
; gardens €6.50, palace & gardens €10; 9am-1pm & 2-7pm)
Fam-
ously depicted on bottles of Mateus rosé, the 18th-century Palácio de Mateus is one of
Portugal's great baroque masterpieces - probably the work of Italian-born architect Nic-
olau Nasoni. Guided tours of the mansion (in English, French, Spanish and German) take
you through the main quarters, which combine rusticity with restrained grandeur.
Its granite wings ('advancing lobster-like towards you', wrote English critic Sir
Sacheverell Sitwell) shelter a lichen- encrusted forecourt dominated by an ornate stairway
and guarded by rooftop statues. Surrounding the palace is a fantasy of a garden, with tiny
boxwood hedges, prim statues and a fragrant cypress tunnel that's blissfully cool on even
the hottest days. (Don't miss the fanciful 5m-tall curved ladders used to prune the tunnel's
exterior branches!)
Inside, the library contains one of the first illustrated editions of Luís Vaz de Camões'
Os Lusíadas
, Portugal's most important epic poem, while another room houses an unin-
tentionally droll collection of religious bric-a-brac, including three dozen macabre relics
bought from the Vatican in the 18th century: a bit of holy fingernail, a saintly set of eye-
balls, and the inevitable piece of the true cross - each with the Vatican's proof of authenti-
city.
PALACE
