life on the hill (VI)

One consequence of the wide peripheral vision (as it were) of the House on the Hill is that it, too, is visible from lots of points in the vicinity – any place we can see we can be seen from –, meaning that a measure of exposure is inevitable. Because of that, but even more importantly out of a wish to tread lightly on the Hill – there are too many large, conspicuous houses on it as it is – I tried to make it discrete, so that while one can see it one has to know where to look. Indeed one of our favourite games in the beginning – especially after building commenced – was to see how soon we could spot it, and from where, every time we came on a visit to check on progress.

My own favourite approach is from Sintra, by the road hugging the northern flank of the mountain. All twists and turns and switchbacks, dappled shadows on huge boulders, ancient trees and the twinkling of cool streams, with the occasional mossy stone wall denouncing the presence of some old house or hill farm, or a former convent, behind it.

Its name, I only recently discovered, is Estrada Nova da Rainha (The Queen's New Road), a rare instance of the official designation trumping the vernacular (Estrada da Serra/Mountain Road) for poetry and romance, and of a royalist name escaping the zeal of revolutionary republicanism in the wake of a King’s assassination and the extinction of an 800 year-old monarchy in the early years of the last century.

An appropriately dignified track then, I feel, to make one's way to Fool Manor.