The Quinta da Regaleira garden in Sintra, Portugal Part 1

A couple a weeks ago when I was in Lisbon Portugal I decided to take care of a dream of mine. 

I went to the train station and took the 40 minutes ride up to the amazing town of Sintra!

Ones the summer retreat of Royalty, Nobless and Famous from all over Europe (Agatha Christie wrote some of her books here), now a dramatic lush fairytale garden landscape where everybody have access to the former private gardens.

Since it's weeks worth of exploring did I start with one of the most spectacular ones:

QUINTA DA REGALEIRA

Ones owned by Baroness da Regaleira, bought 1893 by Carvalho Monteiro family who had the Set designer and Architect Luigi Manini to start design the  rocky gardens 1998-1900.

Enjoy my stroll of the Hillside gardens in Autumn colours:

It's Autumn with it's beautiful colours

The lower gardens have a lot of fantastic ferns, both in tree forms and lower sorts where one can find antique statues embedded in the lush landscape

 And some Fuchsias

 The Pisoes Loggia

 One of the many amazing benches

 The Fountain of Regaleira

 Leda's Grotto, one of the many caves in this rocky garden.

 The garden is full of exciting ravines, streams, bridges, caves and underground walkways

Portal of the Guardians, which has a secret entrance to the amazing Initiatic Well which I show in the next blogg

I will continue my stroll trhough these stunning gardens in the next blogg!

Enjoy, Per!

The Medici Familys green Imperium Boboli Gardens in Florence

After seeing The Borghese Familys Gardens in Rome, the Medici's Boboli Gardens in Florence is a must.

After the Medici's bought the Pitti Palace 1550, they also bought all the land behind it from the Boboli family.

Much more formal than Borghese in Rome, but inside each green walled block is hidden another little "natural" forrest or secret garden! Exciting! There are many sculptures and fountains off course, also new moden contemporary ones.

BOBOLI GARDENS

To see it all must take days, but here are a gallery from my 3 hours there, Enjoy :D

Here is a map over the Boboli garden with the Pitti Palace down to the left.

A view of the Palace from the gardens above

 Detail from the huge amphi theatre in the back of the palace

Antique sculptures can be found all over the gardens that where made as a open air museum for the family

 Behind these green walls are small forrests and secret gardens

The upper garden by the Casino del Cavaliere, now empty on flowers for the winter, except Roses.

The view of the landscape from the upper gardens

The collection of fantastic trees are amazing

One of my favorite artists, Igor Mitoraj made this huge bronze scuplture "Tindaro Screpolato" 1998

And it fits right in to the landspace here

I love the green alley ways

Behind the green walls You find all sorts of beautiful surprices

Isollotto's Basin with all the Citrus plants is a part of the garden that can be a cooling refuge after hours of walking

Pegasus by Aristodemo Costoli - 1865

The Spectacular view over Florence from the Garden Café

As I said, it takes days to see everything, and I missed some of the important pieces of European Art history, like the "Medusa Shield" & "The Dwarf Morgante", more reasons to come back, maybe when the flowers are in bloom as well.

Hope You enjoyed, I did!

Per!