Versão portuguesa aqui.

GPS 40.19879023597968, -8.43349712198791

Quinta das Lágrimas is located on the left bank of the Mondego, in the parish of Santa Clara, in the city and municipality of Coimbra, in the district of the same name, in Portugal.

It occupies an area of ​​18.3 hectares around a 19th century palace redeveloped today as a luxury hotel. In its gardens, memories have accumulated since the 14th century, both in the built elements and in the trees, in popular legends and in its own history.

They contain the so-called Fountain of Love and Fountain of Tears. The farm and the two aforementioned fountains are famous for having been the scene of the love affairs of Prince D. Pedro (future Pedro I of Portugal) and the noblewoman D. Inês de Castro, the subject of countless works of art over the centuries.

Quinta das Lágrimas has been classified as a Property of Public Interest since 1977.

History

The area then called "Quinta do Pombal" was a hunting ground for the Portuguese Royal Family since at least the 14th century.

The oldest document referring to the property dates back to 1326, the year in which Saint Isabel of Aragon, Queen of Portugal ordered the construction of a canal to take water from two springs to the Convent of Santa Clara. The place where the water came out was called "Fonte dos Amores", because it witnessed the passion of D. Pedro, grandson of the sovereign, for Inês de Castro, a Galician noblewoman who served as lady-in-waiting to D. Pedro's wife, D. Constance. This fountain still has access, through a Gothic pointed arch, dating from the 14th century. The other fountain on the farm, slightly further away from the first in relation to the convent, was called by Luís de Camões in "Os Lusíadas", as "Fonte das Lágrimas", stating that it was born from the tears shed by Inês when she was murdered at the behest of of Afonso IV of Portugal. Inês' blood would have remained stuck to the rocks of the bed, still red after six and a half centuries...

"The daughters of Mondego, the dark death They remembered crying for a long time And for eternal memory in a pure fountain The tears they cried transformed The name they gave her that still lasts Of the loves of Inês that passed there See what a fresh fountain waters the flowers That the Tears are water and the name loves" Os Lusíadas, song III. Over the centuries, the farm became the property of the University of Coimbra and a religious order.

In 1650 it was walled, the paths and embankments that support the land and trees of the forest were built, and the large tank was built that receives the water from the Fonte das Lágrimas and directs it, through a canal, to feed the millstones. of an oil mill.

In 1730 the farm was acquired by the Osório Cabral de Castro family, who ordered the construction of a palace. The current name of Quinta das Lágrimas dates from this period.

In 1813, Arthur Wellesley, then still Viscount of Wellington, commander of the Portuguese-British troops defending the kingdom from Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces, was a guest at the farm, at the invitation of his aide-de-camp, António Maria Osório Cabral de Castro , its then owner. On that occasion, Wellington planted two redwood trees ("Sequoia sempervirens") near the "Fonte dos Amores" and a tombstone was erected with the famous stanza from "Os Lusíadas" which places the story of Pedro and Inês on the Quinta.

Around 1850, Miguel Osório Cabral e Castro, António's son, ordered the construction of the leafy romantic garden that still surrounds the Quinta today, with meandering lakes and exotic plant species from various parts of the world, in a kind of plant museum. His nephew, D. Duarte de Alarcão Velasquez Sarmento Osório, great-grandfather of the current owners, built an arched door and a neo-Gothic window next to the entrance to the mine commissioned by the Holy Queen, giving access to the Quinta's forest.

The 19th century witnessed several royal visits, such as that of D. Miguel of Portugal and that of the Emperor of Brazil D. Pedro II (1872).

The original palace was destroyed by a violent fire in 1879, and was rebuilt in the style of old Portuguese rural manors, with a library and chapel. In the area around the palace, the remains of old rural buildings can still be seen, such as the granary, the warehouse and the olive press.

The contemporary farmhouse

The spaces of the Farm and the Palace were restored in the 1980s and 1990s, by the architect José Maria Caldeira Cabral (Archive of the Architect Caldeira Cabral). In 1995, the Quinta das Lágrimas Hotel was opened, part of the Relais & Châteaux chain, considered one of the best in the country. His restaurant, Arcadas, has a star in the Michelin Guide.

In 2004, architect Gonçalo Byrne, Grand Prize winner of the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, designed a new wing, with a meeting center and a spa. In 2006, landscape architect Cristina Castel-Branco began restoring the gardens, donated to the Inês de Castro Foundation. During his intervention, a medieval garden was recreated, the forest walls were restored, the canals of "Fonte das Lágrimas" and "Fonte dos Amores", curtains of vegetation were planted, a sequoia avenue, a Japanese garden (inside the hotel) , and the "Colina de Camões" Amphitheater was built, which won the First National Prize for Landscape Architecture (2008).

Open to public visits, the Quinta das Lágrimas gardens, maintained by the Inês de Castro Foundation, are members of the Portuguese Association of Gardens and Historic Sites.

Gallery

Full list of Geochaching below: