12.4.15 - Mata Nacional do Bussaco

Travelling in the Bussaco National Forest is a complete adventure in a very small space: nature, history and gastronomy.
Rising from the N1 to Luso and then to the Bussaco, we can smell on air that something mystical will descend upon us, calmly and stillness.
The houses, the trees, take a very different format from the one we are used to, the vegetation changes profoundly and instead of Australian eucalyptus we can see what should be our forest.
A token payment to entry helps sustainability and could serve as an example to many other places scattered Portugal.
Entering the Forest by the Luso gate, the steep parallel road where the sun finds it difficult to penetrate, takes us to a fantastic and romantic world: ferns, water points, ruins. Sources flank the path and make it magical.
Chapels, shrines, trails, is a little of what there is to see until you reach the palace gardens, this mystical land where glorious battles fought against Napoleon's troops.
Designed by several architects, presents a neomanuelino mark with reasons Jeronimos and Belem Tower, inspired by the Convento de Cristo and contrasting with the gothic romantic, containing the tiles inside the great masters of XIX century and tapestries, the palace is a mystical and worthy place of Kings.
At table, a place with one of the most beautiful wine cellar of Portugal, the famous Beef Wellington, in honor of the general who spent the night over there.
To my friend Alexander and his family, a warm hug to keep alive the history of Portugal.