This morning was dedicated to packing our luggage for the trip home and getting the covid test we needed to re-enter the US. Since our flight leaves at 5:40AM and we leave the hotel at 3AM to catch it, we wanted everything packed and secure to the extent possible. Part of the design goal was to have all the dirty clothes that would fit in one big bag along with padding for the wine and the clean clothes in the other big bag, with purchases in our carry on.
This still gave us time to relax and to work on the blog. We caught a light lunch in a nearby cafe and then hopped on a bus to travel south of Lisbon to a very old residence in Azeitao which became a winery (no tasting this time) and also had an adjoining tile 'factory'.
Just before we arrived a the villa, I looked at Facebook on my phone and saw that my cousin Anna had posted twice -- once that she was on her way to Lisbon and second that she had arrived! We exchanged a number of texts as I was walking around the gardens, establishing that, in theory we had about an hour when we were both supposed to be free. The difficulty was that her hotel was a 10 minute walk downhill from mine, which would mean more than that uphill and I would need a shower before I could be presentable for our farewell dinner. As it was, our bus was 45 minutes late getting back, so even Uber wouldn't have saved the date. But what a small world to have her end up here the same day as me. I have stopped posting our travels on Facebook til after we return, so she had no idea I was there.
First we toured the grounds and house and learned of its history. Quinta da Bacalhoa (a play on a slur for a woman in the cod fishing industry) was first purchased 1275 and built on in the 1300s.. It changed hands several times until 1609 when one family controlled it until 1901. It acquired its last owner in 1936 after it had become derelict. Photos at the bottom show the before and afters of a couple places. It was put up for sale for 130,000 of whatever the currency was then. However the buyer, Orlena Zabriskie Scoville turned out to be a tireless and hard bargainer and got it for 12,000.
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| Above and below: entry courtyard. |
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| This appears to have been a swimming pool as the depth varies from one end to the other, |
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| We walked thru the rooms behind the arches which were decorated with many different tiles from centuries ago. |
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| Not sure where the water is coming from but I liked the look |
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| These were the most interesting tiles we saw. They were three dimensional and the three brown dots you can see on the tile below are where little legs were placed to keep the raised parts separated so they didn't flatten in the kiln. Then the legs were broken off, leaving the unglazed spots. |
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| Much of what we walked through looked like this. |
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| Above and below: before (1936 purchase status) and after renovation. I am pretty sure it cost more than the 120,000 Mrs. Scoville shaved off the price. |
After getting a brief introduction to how some of the tiles were made, we had the opportunity to paint one each. Because of the firing time involved, finishing them there was not an option so we opted to bring our two tiles home and see if we will be able to find someplace to fire them. I have no illusions that they are great artwork. The good news is that the factory had stencils we could use as a pattern and we each got one very fine brush and one fat one. Unfortunately, they appear to do this kind of thing a lot because my fine brush had definitely seen better days and barely carried any paint, so long thin lines were out of the question. I have long fat lines instead. I'll add photos of the finished product when we find somewhere to fire them.
Back at the hotel, we prepped for our farewell dinner and an early rising time to fly home.
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