Rio: São Cristóvão and Quinta da Boa Vista

Quinta da Boa Vista did not start as a public park or even an imperial commission. In 1808, a wealthy merchant named Elias Antônio Lopes offered his private country estate on this hill to the Portuguese royal family when they fled Napoleon and landed in Rio. It was an exceptionally shrewd gift: in return, he received noble favors, while the royal court got an airy retreat safely above the humid colonial city.

If we had arrived here two centuries ago, the approach would have felt like strict imperial theater. Visitors traveled along a dead-straight avenue lined with Sapucaia trees, heading directly toward a monumental neoclassical entrance gate. That gate was an English import, molded in 1816 out of weather-resistant Coade stone as an exact replica of Robert Adam's screen at Syon House, gifted by the Duke of Northumberland.

Half a century later, the monarchy decided that imperial majesty should feel less rigid and more romantic. In 1869, the French landscape architect Auguste Glaziou swept away much of the old colonial symmetry. He reshaped the grounds into a naturalistic English-style park, rolling out artificial hills, curved pathways, and winding lakes crossed by rustic bridges.