Normally, on sunday, I always go for a walk longer than the usual on week days. Yesterday, I took the direction towards a Lisbon surrounding beach where whenever I passed by car, I saw some bird on the top of a weird structure that had been intriguing me. Not easy to have the car parked nearby.
Caxias beach, despite its privileged location close to Lisbon is a quite place that lies along a riverside road. People can reach it either by car or train. It's about 12 km far from my apartment. The temperature was very comfortable and I knew well I could reach it by going on foot. I did it along a pedestrian alley by the riverside and here and there I stopped to take a photo.
Once at Caxias, I saw the mysterious bird a bit far from the riverside. I walked towards the town center and found an entrance gate to a park - I had thought it was a park - , I didn't hesitate and decided to visit it. It was not a common park but the Royal Estate of Caxias. After reading the information board at the entrance, I understood why it's called the Royal Estate. During XVIII century, several Lisbon surrounding areas went under a great landscape transformation, mainly farms and recreation gardens - Estates - of which the Royal Estate of Caxias is one of the examples.
In that Estate, the then Royal Family used to organize strolls, games, as well as the reherseal of plays, dances and music performances, all these on hot days, when they could enjoy the cool breeze blowing from the Atlantic ocean.
The garden, clearly influenced by the French landscape architect Le Nôtre, is the most distinguished element of the estate, and so is the Cascade at the top of which the mysterious bird was dominating the overall area. At first, it seemed to be a stork but looking at it more carefully I realized it wasn't a stork but an egret, the wings of which flapped in the breeze.
The mystery was over!
