Study trip abroad 2008: Portugal

Possibly one of the most delightful study trips in our history, Portugal surprised everyone with its wealth of historic places, excellent museums, historic houses and palaces, and constantly beautiful blue skies and perfectly warm weather. Plus, our exceptional local guides were extremely well-read and academically informed. Oporto and Lisbon, the main cities we visited, are situated similarly on major rivers which brought wide open vistas and refreshing breezes to both. Just to touch on a few highlights, in Oporto, visiting the port (as in wine) lodges is a must but we also found our visit to the 18th-century British Factory House an interesting part of the port story. It was/is the business and social center for those who own port lodges, a requirement for membership. Many of the owners were British or Scottish in the 18th century. Still intact and in use are the Wedgwood-esque assembly room, the long double dining rooms (the second for port tasting after dinner so it wouldn’t be contaminated with dinner aromas), the restored third floor kitchen (in case of fire, it was hoped to burn up rather than down), and the neatly packed library with odd, wonderful volumes.

Stopping in Coimbra on the way to Lisbon, we visited the university established in 1209 and its breathtakingly beautiful early 18th-century library. Another stop was the small town of Arraiolos where women everywhere were seen cross-stitching wool rugs, which they have been doing since the 13th century.

In Lisbon, azulejos (Portuguese ceramic tiles) were abundant and beautiful, particularly at one of our favorite places, the Palacio do Fronteira, a 17th-century palace notably decorated. The gardens laid out in 1668 by the first Marques de Fronteira, are astounding. So superior, they were visited in 1669, the next year, by Cosimo de’ Medici. The 18th-century palace, Queluz, is an interesting furniture study but more focused is the Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva Foundation, comprised of the 17th-century Azazura Palace, furnished completely with Portuguese furniture, silver, and decorative arts. It is the Winterthur of Portugal! And, it has a school started in 1953 to foster traditional crafts such as bookbinding, inlay, cabinet-making, and sand casting ormolu. We could have spent days there. As for “collec­tions,” the Gulbenkian Museum is exquisite with a wide-ranging presentation, and the Carriage Museum has a mind-altering number of carved and gilded royal coaches that clearly drive home the understanding of just how tremendous the wealth was in 18th-century Portugal.

This is just a touch of the fantastic content of the Trust Study Trip Abroad 2008.