Saramago Route

Housed in a building that looks like it was imagined by the author of the novel "Baltasar and Blimunda". Clad in carved, diamond-shaped stone, the building – known as the Casa dos Bicos – stands out for its unusual beauty. Contained inside is a touching permanent exhibition on the life and work of José Saramago. Lying under an olive tree at the front of the building are the writer’s ashes.

Although its official name is Praça D. Pedro IV, everyone calls this square Rossio, the name Blimunda and Baltasar, the lovers in the novel of the same name, also knew it by. It was here, while watching an auto-de-fé, that they saw each other for the first time. Today, Rossio still has a tribute to all those who were executed here by order of the Inquisition, and also the rhythm of one of the oldest and most iconic squares in Lisbon.

This is one of Lisbon's seven hills and possibly its most charming. If you walk up to the castle, you can catch the whole city in a single glance. At your feet, the old houses winding along the narrow streets take you back to an earlier time. This is where Blimunda took Baltazar the day they met and fell in love in Saramago's novel. She left the door to her house ajar and that was all he needed to enter her life for good...

Permanently embracing the Tagus, this square was the point of departure and arrival for so many mariners during the age of the maritime discoveries. It was here that Frei Bartolomeu de Gusmão, the inventor of the flying machine the passarola that would carry the protagonists of Baltasar and Blimunda to Mafra, lived. You don’t believe it? In the Lisboa Story Centre, right in the square, you will find a replica of this flying machine and proof that this precursor of aviation really lived.

Built in the 16th century, this was the main Jesuit church for over 200 years and one of the first in the world. The interior contains Italian masterpieces, such as the mosaic paintings by Mattia Moretti and a set of coloured marble statues of rare beauty. In "Baltasar and Blimunda", Saramago recounts that this was one of the churches that Maria-Ana of Austria, the queen of Portugal, liked to frequent when praying her novenas.

Basilica

Designed by João Frederico Ludovice, who Saramago mentions in his novel "Baltasar and Blimunda", it occupies the central part of the building and is flanked by bell towers. Built in the baroque style, its interior contains, amongst other treasures, the most important collection of baroque sculpture outside Italy, as well as a unique set of six organs commissioned by João VI. Its dome, which is 65 metres high, was the first to be built in Portugal.

Infirmary

When you enter this annex, where monks, doctors and bloodletters would have once busied themselves attending to the seriously ill, it is like travelling in time. On each side of the room are small compartments with straw beds and modest chests. The beds, facing the small chapel at the end of the huge room, allowed patients to watch the celebration of mass...

King's private chapel

Also called the chapel of São João Carpinteiro, it is located in the north tower where the king’s former private chambers used to be and is completely clad in Portuguese stone – limestone and lioz, a rare type of limestone in pink, green and ivory hues. Ironically, these chambers would never be used by João V, who had this lavish building constructed. The same irony is employed by José Saramago throughout the narrative of his novel about the Monastery of Mafra.

King's bedroom

On display in the room is the most valuable piece of furniture in the entire palace: a square bed in the imperial style measuring 2m x 2m. This bedroom, used by the monarchy until the death of King Fernando in 1885, became a guestroom for important visitors to Mafra.

Hall of Destinies

The ceiling, painted by Cirilo Volkmar Machado, depicts an image of the Temple of Destiny on which the figure of providence delivering the Book of the Destinies of the Fatherland to Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, stands out. Around them can be seen all of the kings of Portugal up to João IV. If Blimunda, one of the protagonists of "Baltasar and Blimunda", had ever entered this room, would she have been able to decipher the desires of all of the monarchs through these portraits?

Guard Room

Look at the ceiling and concentrate on the central figure in the painting which fills it, a work by Cirilo Volkmar Machado. If you walk the full length of this room, you will notice that the gaze of this figure, who represents the son of Helios, the god of the sun, continues to follow you and his body turns in order to do so. This would even have unnerved Blimunda, the peasant woman from "Baltasar and Blimunda", whose eyes see everything. Try it and be amazed.

Benediction Room

It was from this room that the monarchy attended the mass through the large windows facing the basilica. On the other side, the exterior, is a balcony supported by the stone which José Saramago dedicates an entire chapter to in "Baltasar and Blimunda" - just to stress the colossal work of the men who built this huge monument.

Library

This T-shaped room, 84 metres long, houses 30,000 books on rococo bookshelves. The oldest is from 1472 and the most recent from 1820. Amongst them is a collection that was part of the contents of the Inquisition consisting of books of alchemy, black magic and the occult, amongst other obscure matters that would certainly have excited the curiosity of Bartolomeu de Gusmão, a character mentioned in "Baltasar and Blimunda". Its catalogue is a manuscript that took ten years to complete. The library is still accepting members.

Created in 1747 by João V, following the construction of the Monastery of Mafra, this hunting reserve covers 1,200 hectares and is surrounded by a 21km-long wall. Today, you can tour it by train or electric car, practice archery, take a workshop on falconry, hunt, walk or cycle the trails, spend the night and, who knows, dream about flying passarolas.