Tours and Other Tourism Services

In the Quinta de Tormes estate, discover the life and times of one of Portugal's most important 19th century writers - Eça de Queirós.

Eça de Queirós (1845 - 1900), was one of Portugal's greatest novelists. His work is characterised by social critique, narrative capacity, analytic rigour, a strong sense of realism and great creativity.

Eça was born in Póvoa do Varzim, and began working as a lawyer in Lisbon, and was then nominated consul in Havana in 1872. During this period he travelled to the United States and Canada. In 1874 he was transferred to England, initially to Newcastle (1874) and then to Bristol (1878). In 1888 he moved to Paris, where he lived until his death. One of his most important works, the "Crime of Father Amaro", written in 1875, was adapted to a contemporary Mexican setting, in the film by Carlos Carrera (2002), starring Gael García.

The Eça de Queirós Foundation, is located in the Quinta de Tormes estate in a house-museum where the writer spent part of his life. The foundation is dedicated to the divulgation and preservation of the writer's memory and personal collection. Visitors to Tormes will have the chance to see the high table where he wrote standing up, engravings and paintings that decorated his house in Neuilly, in Paris, personal objects and his library. The house has a unique landscape setting that was immortalised in his books.