Jardim Episcopal de Castelo Branco

This is a delightful garden, full of water and orange trees. It is particularly well known for its stone statues. A few years ago there was consternation amongst garden aficionados when the statues were cleaned, leaving them horribly bright and white. Fortunately they’ve now started to revert to a more natural grey colour.

The renowned Portuguese novelist, José Saramago (who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1998) describes the garden in his own idiosyncratic way in ‘Journey to Portugal’:

“The traveller thinks there cannot be another garden like this in the whole world. If there is, then this is a remarkable copy; if not, then it’s worth a lot of praise. The only drawback he can find is that it is not somewhere to rest or to read a book – anyone entering it should bear that in mind. When the bishops came in here, they doubtless brought their servants with them, and they in turn brought stools for their masters to rest and pray on, but nowadays the common traveller who visits the garden can look round it as much as he or she likes, but will have only the ground or the steps of the staircases to sit on. The statues are remarkable, not so much for their artistic value, which is debatable, but for the ingenuity they show, the display of a learned plastic vocabulary. Here are the kings of Portugal, like those of a pack of cards, and here too is the patriotic gesture that meant the kings of Spain were portrayed alongside them on a smaller scale – since they could not be ignored entirely, they were shrunk. Alongside them are the symbolic statues: Faith, Hope and Charity; Spring and the other seasons; and here in a corner facing the wall, Death. The visitors don’t like this particular statue, of course. They stick chewing gum in its empty eye sockets, put cigarettes between its lips. These insults probably mean little to Death. It knows that there is a time for everything.” (Journey to Portugal by José Saramago, publ. Harvill Press.)

Saramago’s point about the lack of somewhere to sit is definitely worth bearing in mind. It’s a pity there isn’t the occasional bench here and there. But that is the only minor criticism one could make of this garden, which in every other respect is a real treat.

(5.0/5)

It's a great garden. Very beautiful!

(5.0/5)

I like small baroque gardens better than big baroque gardens.

(3.0/5)