seclusion: convento dos capuchos, convento da cortiça, em sintra

o álbum todo, aqui.

"Descending through a tolerable easy road, which wound amongst the rocks in many an irregular curve, we followed for several miles a narrow tract over the brow of savage and desolate eminences to the Cork Convent, which answered exactly, at the first glance we caught of it, the picture one represents to one's self of the settlement of Robinson Crusoe. Before the entrance, formed of two ledges of ponderous rock, extends a smooth level of greensward, browsed by cattle, whose tinkling bells filled me with recollections of early days passed amongst wild and alpine scenery. The hermitage, its cells, chapel, and refectory, are all scooped out of the native marble, and lined with the bark of the cork tree. Several of the passages about it are not only roofed, but floored with the same material, extremely soft and pleasant to the feet. The shruberies and garden plats, dispersed amongst the mossy rocks which lie about in the wildest confusion, are delightful, and I took great pleasure in exploring their nooks and corners, following the course of a transparent, gurgling rill, which is conducted through a rustic watershoot, between bushes of lavender and rosemary of the tenderest green."
in Italy: with sketches of Spain and Portugal, vol. II, 1834
William Beckford

apesar de eu ser daqui, lembro-me de visitar em tempos de liceu, quando as motorizadas podiam entrar até quase à porta do convento, semi-abandonado, e anos mais tarde, talvez, com a minha filha pequena. agora voltei aos capuchos, já com a organização e o bilhete pago dos Parques de Sintra, café e compras turísticas, casas de banho e um mapa do convento. gostei de visitar, vale a pena o bilhete de entrada. a descrição de Beckford continua actual, apenas o chão deixou de ser de cortiça. em alguns locais uma tijoleira feia, noutros cimento. o miradouro de orações ou jejum ou de seclusão deve ser um dos menos visitados de Sintra. entender quem ali vivia em celas de metro e meio por metro e meio, isso é mais difícil. E não sabia que o abade era nomeado pelos Marialvas.