Parque da Quinta do Monteiro-Mor

In Lumiar, the Quinta do Monteiro-Mor Park, now known as the Monteiro-Mor Botanical Park, is one of those places where Lisbon seems to gain time and depth. Created in the eighteenth century as part of an aristocratic leisure estate and associated with Vandelli, it still preserves the logic of a historic garden, orchard, vegetable garden, woodland and water corners spread across about eleven hectares. As you walk through it, you can still sense the site’s old botanical and collecting vocation, marked by rare species and by very different settings unfolding from one area to the next. It is no coincidence that the first known Araucaria heterophylla in mainland Portugal is found here. The park extends the memory of the Monteiro-Mor palaces and is in dialogue with the museums installed on the estate, yet what lingers most is the atmosphere: stairways, pools, deep shade and an almost unexpected serenity. It is a garden best discovered slowly, between science, landscape and memory.