
Marechal Carmona Park :: Soft Autumn at the Park
The calendar tells us that we are halfway through November and Cascais is greeted with a blue sky and a pleasant 18ºC. Of course, not everyday is like this. However, days like today are no exception. With a gift like this, there is always so much to do, so much to discover and enjoy, especially outdoors.
We walked to Marechal Carmona Park to enjoy this soft autumn day and share with you a little bit of its history and details.
While following theses paths we feel as if we are in a time capsule, highlighted by its vintage details.
Part of this space has existed since the XVI century, when it was used as a leisure and production farm. Later, after its acquisition by Visconde da Gandarinha, it was transformed into a romantic park. In the decade of 1940, its area was expanded by the joining of the Castro Guimarãoes Counts Palace Garden, also filled with romantic references. All these characteristics, preserved in time, are elements that allow us to enjoy a place filled with corners, details and landscaping notes from the romantic era.
Through the meandering dirt pathways, we are sometimes escorted by chickens, roosters of vibrant colours, or by elegant peacocks, all in absolute freedom. On the lakes, swans, ducks and turtles live in perfect happiness.
Large trees, mostly evergreens, provide a green atmosphere and constant shade. At the top of some of them, wooden houses offer shelter and food to wild birds, in a clear welcoming message.
Here and there calm garden benches invite relaxed reading or simple contemplation of the surrounding nature. A generous picnic park suggests lively meals, together with your family, at weekends. Nearby, a smaller stream from Ribeira dos Mochos passes by, flowing stronger when rainfalls are more frequent, a party for the ducklings.
You can also find a large playground for children, equipped with swings and other amusements for the kids, a traditional games field, a mini-zoo with several different species of rodents and birds, a greenhouse, a junior library and a small snack-bar. One very important note: on Saturdays the park hosts the Cascais Biologic Market, where you can find several products from biologic farming, from fruit to vegetables, jams, sweets, bread and regional cakes.
When rain and cold weather is in season, outdoor programs are in a certain way more conditioned, and we are invited to stay in doors, which is not always desirable. Luckily, in Cascais, due to its mild sunny climate, you will have plenty of days when you can take walks, date the park or even date in the park, enjoy reading moments alone with nature as your company, organize picnics or other entertainment activities, all this in a soft autumn, so frequent in this town.
Are you already convinced and curious?… Nothing like joining us and check all this for yourself.”