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I mentioned in an earlier post that Portugal has less “world famous” artworks than, say, Italy. But, while Porto is smaller than Lisbon, that doesn’t mean it lacks interesting museums. Far from it! Not everything in Porto (or Gaia) is about port :).
The first museum we visited, the Museu Romântico da Quinta da Macieirinha (you’ll have to translate the page from Portuguese), sits in a large park which also hosts the Crystal Palace. The park offers some beautiful views of the western side of Porto and Gaia.
The museum itself is relatively modest, recreating the home of a wealthy bourgeoisie from the nineteenth century. All I can say is, those wealthy bourgeoise had some really cool stuff :)!
And, of course, some beautiful furniture!
Although I doubt any 19th century bourgeoisie, no matter how wealthy, had the ability to project this onto a wall.
I found this depiction of the crucifixion interesting because it’s one of the only ones I can recall which features blood tracks on Jesus’ body. A bit gruesome, admittedly, but unusual nonetheless, I think.
There were also a number of whimsical pieces of art…which always catch my eye :). Fish, anyone? And just what kind of bird is that, anyway?
Leaving the museum, we grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby pastry/coffee shop. We then took a lengthy break in a neat little park we discovered on the walk from our bus stop to the museum.
Besides being a pleasant place to chill out, it was also home to a bunch of peacocks! And roosters, although we only saw one of the latter.
