SERRALVES - The Porto City Garden
May 21, 2026
There is a hidden gem in Porto. It’s called SERRALVES. Located in Boavista and housing the Museum of Contemporary Art, it is a peaceful oasis of a park cum farm. Sheep, cows and a donkey graze in a meadow, with magnolia trees watching the pastoral scene with serenity. A tree top walk, from the Art Deco pink house currently displaying Miro, through the boughs to a verdant lake, felt like walking on air.
The park and house were once under the personal ownership of a rich industrialist, before he bequeathed it to the city. How grateful we should be for such a philanthropic gesture.
Ambling through the park, stopping and staring at the time and love devoted to the plants and flowers and paths, I mused on the importance of being in service to nature. She is our life force - for we are ourselves nature.
School children were enjoying the park with their teachers. Hugging trees and stroking the animals. I did this as a child on our nature walks from my village school with Miss Preston. I learnt what grew in the hedgerows - from the hawthorn to the blackberry. Which birds made their nests in the poplar tree and which in the eaves of a house. I thought also of my mother Ruth - a botanist and biologist who made gardens like Monet and kept chickens, who laid eggs for my breakfast. Her love of nature she passed on to me. I hope she knows that I treasure this more as I age, and see with fresh eyes the beauty in a single rose and purple iris. Thank you Mum for all that you gave me, which I never found time to thank you for. Here in SERRALVES, I am sending out a prayer, hoping it reaches you in heaven -
from your beloved daughter
Julia
