A train station with an art gallery of 20.000 painted tiles depicting history, landscapes and everyday life in Portugal

One of the first places I went to after arrival in Porto last month, was the São Bento railway station. The station serves several cities and a metro line. The location is the Historic Centre, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The construction of the station started in 1904. What makes this railway station unique, is what you are going to see as soon as you enter: around 20.000 beatifully painted azuelejo tiles. The artist behind this impressive work is Jorge Colaço. The murals depict scenes from the history of Portugal and scenes from everyday life among people of diferent regions.

I did not take any photos of the huge building from outside. This was due to construction work in front of it,. The architectural style is the Beaux-Arts style, which has been popular, especially in France. The building is a three story, U-shaped granite building. Once you enter the vestibule you will see how it it completely coverd with the azulejo tiles. This day, when my frien and I were here, there were a lot of people here. I don't belive they were all going to catch a train! They were probably there to look at the art work. Just like us. It was not so easy to get a good positon for taking photos. The large windows facing the street didn't make it easy either. But, we started to walk along the walls to admire the tiles.

The first large painting we stopped at, is on the left of the entrance. It is devided into two parts. The upper depicts a scene of a batle. On a sign, we can read that this is the Battle of Arcos de Valdevez and Egas Moniz before Alfonso VII of Castile. The battle took place in 1140 or 1141. It was a fight between two Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Leon. This batle was an important batle as it helped Portugal to become independent ( I had to google this battle...). On the sign it says that this is Egas Moniz befor Alfonso VII of Castile.

The tiles dates back to 1904. The artist is a known azulejo painter by the name of Jorge Colaço. He started to place the tiles after being produced somewhere else. It took him 11 years to complete this work.

As we walked along the walls, we saw scenes from everyday life and the countryside. The paintings are showing so many different scenes. There are scenes from harvest, vineyards, wines being shipped down the Douro Valley, watermill, cattle fair etc.

Up underneith the ceiling there you can see how the wall is decorated. The multicolored frieze follows the ceiling all the way round. It dipicts the story of transportation. The photos I managed to take, shows only a small part of the frieze. Even the ceiling is nicely decorated as well. I don't think there was any emty spot on any of the walls!

Another interesting fact is that the railway station was build on the same spot where the São Bento da Avé Maria once was located. This was a Benedictine Convent that was in use as a convent until the last nun died. That explaines the name of the station.

Unfortunately, I didn't know much about Portugal's history to be able to understand what was unfolding from the scenes on the tiles. If we had done a guided walk of Porto, we would have had information on the muals. We could still enjoy the sight of the amazing work.