Nov 2 Hotel Palace Bussaco, Portugal

On Nov 2 we went to the Hotel Palace Bussaco (aka Bucaco where in Portuguese, the first 'c' has an accent that I can't place in this narrative and is pronounced like a 'ss').

This started as a Carmelite Convent in about 1630. Viscount Wellington, later the Duke of Wellington, spent a night there in 1810 after the battle of Bussaco (first image is a painting by Thomas St Clair) where Wellington's forces stopped the French invasion of Portugal with a combined army of English and Portuguese (as shown in the first image, Wellington's forces had the ridge line).  In the second image Beth and George are in front of the convent. 

In the 1830s, after the Portuguese Civil War, the Carmelites left the convent as State support of first, monasteries and later, convents ceased and the land was repossessed by the government. Later in the 19th century, a construction of a palace was begun. It was to be used as a hunting lodge for the Royal family. However, soon after it was finished (1907), Manuel II abdicated (1910) and there was no more Royal family (the third image, from unofficialroyalty.com, shows Manuel and his wife attending Wimbledon in 1930). So it became a hotel.

The Palace Hotel (PH) is built in the Manueline style, meaning structural elements are made into design art. Beth and George, in the fourth image, are on one side of the PH. Note the design art on the columns.

In the fifth image, Beth and George are at the front of the PH.  It is remarkable how many design art elements can be integrated into a building.  This, apparently, is one of the most completely Manueline buildings in the world and one of the few completed in the 20th century.