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Portugal's Buddha Eden, Europe's biggest oriental garden

Xinhua, July 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

At the entrance of Portugal's Buddha Eden garden, a large stainless steel sculpture with a rotating rectangle from which a rotating diamond pivots, may confuse visitors.

It is a sculpture by the English artist Lynn Chadwick, entitled Ace of Diamond II. There are a number of contemporary works here from Portugal's Berardo collection by national and international artists including Joana Vasconcelos, Alexander Calder, Fernando Botero, Tony Crag and Allen Jones.

Around 80 kilometers west of Lisbon, and just a few kilometers away from the popular town of Obidos, this is Europe's largest oriental garden, where contemporary and African masterpieces stand amid striking marble and granite statues of buddhas stand surrounded by lakes, flora and fountains.

The garden, with around 35 hectares of land, at Quinta dos Loridos, was created by Comendator Jose Berardo after the great Afghan Buddha statues of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban.

Over 6000 tons of marble were commissioned in China in 2007, giving way to this peaceful garden where buddhas and pagodas and works of art coexist.

At the north end of the garden there is a Giant buddha of around 21 meters and, further down, a blue army of Xian terracotta warriors. This is an army of detailed life-sized statues representing the Chinese army from the Warring states period.

At the other end of the garden, stands among other works, Vasconcelos' Nectar, a structure composed by green wine bottles and metal, and Pop artist Jones' Temple, a four-armed woman of a range of colors.

The Modern and Contemporary Sculpture garden was incorporated in 2012 and last year the African sculpture garden was launched to complete an aesthetic and emotional journey.

The African sculpture garden is dedicated to the Shona people of Zimbabwe who hand-sculpt stone and reflect both the physical and spiritual through their works.

There are 200 sculptures including Chiripanyanga's "Generations," with stones layered on top of each other and feminine faces carved out of them.

On their way out, visitors can acquire a bottle of wine or typical Moscatel from the brand Bacalhoa, one of the biggest wineries in Portugal, which the comendator Jose Berardo also invested in. Endit