Jardim da Preta

The Jardim da Preta features a dense, overgrown thicket of exotic plants and a rusted iron gate that stands slightly ajar. Local accounts identify this as the former private garden of a nineteenth century noblewoman known simply as A Preta. She arrived from Brazil and maintained a reclusive life behind these high stone walls, filling the space with ferns and camellias brought from her homeland. The tangled, wild appearance persists as the primary identity of the plot in a town of manicured parks.