Jardim da Estrela: Lisbon's Romantic Garden
Why is it significant?
Go through the gates and follow the curving paths in, past the pond where ducks argue with pigeons over breadcrumbs. Nothing here runs in a straight line. The paths bend, the lawns roll, and the trees are planted to look as if nobody planted them at all. That is the whole idea.
Key Facts
| Place | Jardim da Estrela: Lisbon's Romantic Garden |
|---|---|
| Address | Praça da Estrela, 1200-667 Lisboa, Portugal |
| Geo Coordinates | 38.71470, -9.15910 |
| Part of Walk | Lisbon's Garden Hills: Aqueduct Water, Giant Trees & the Estrela Basilica |
| Generated | Generated |
Go through the gates and follow the curving paths in, past the pond where ducks argue with pigeons over breadcrumbs. Nothing here runs in a straight line. The paths bend, the lawns roll, and the trees are planted to look as if nobody planted them at all.
That is the whole idea. The Jardim da Estrela opened in 1852 and was laid out as a romantic garden in the English style, the fashion of the age, all winding walks and carefully staged wildness, in deliberate contrast to the geometric gardens of the baroque. Officially it is named after the poet Guerra Junqueiro, but nobody in Lisbon ever calls it that.
Look for the giants. The garden is a collection of exotic trees from around the world, with enormous fig trees whose roots spill over the ground like poured concrete, palms, cedars and trees from South America and Australia that grow happily in Lisbon's mild, damp winters. On a hot day the air under their crowns feels noticeably cooler than on the pavement outside the gates.
Now find the iron bandstand, the coreto, with its lacework of green-painted metal. It was made in the nineteenth century for the Passeio Público, Lisbon's first public promenade, which once ran where the Avenida da Liberdade is now. When that promenade was swept away for the new avenue, the bandstand was dismantled, and in 1936 it was rebuilt here. Military bands used to play on summer Sundays while families walked in circles in their best clothes, looking at each other.
It is still that kind of place. Grandparents, students revising, toddlers chasing ducks, someone asleep on the grass with a newspaper over their face. Leave the garden by the northern gate, the top end away from the basilica, and turn left. Behind a high wall on the corner, among tall dark trees, lies a corner of England.