If you arrive at the Porto by rail, you will inevitably get to the railway station Sao Bento, which is located in the center of the historical part of the city near the Avenida Aliados and the Cathedral of Se.
Leaving the platform immediately attract the attention of the walls of the hall of the station, decorated with "azuleju".
The word means Portuguese tile, usually square in shape. The azuleju painting technique was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Arabs, was refined over the centuries, and reached its peak in the mid-19th century. The drawing on the ceramic tile was made in 2 colors: white and blue in contrast.
To complete the grandiose work on decorating the interior of the station, the famous Portuguese artist Jorge Colaço needed 20 thousand tiles. Without a doubt, this is one of the outstanding works in this technique.
On the walls with a total area of 551 square meters, various scenes from the history of Portugal are presented: the conquest of Ceuta, the wedding of king Don Joao I, Egas Monis with his sons before the king of Leon and Castile, ethnographic sketches of the regions of Douro and Minho and the history of transport in the country.
The station was built in 1916 by the Portuguese architect Jose Marques da Silva in accordance with the spirit of the time and under the influence of the fashionable French trend in architecture at that time.
