The palm tree

As you walk up the old stone steps through the gate with the initials D.A.A.F. cast in wrought iron overhead and into the courtyard in front of the house, you will come to stand in the shade beneath the palm tree. After Dona Antónia renovated the house at Vesúvio to create the beautiful u-shaped mansion that still stands now she planted a palm tree in the central courtyard. She had a love for this palm tree and it came to be the symbol of Vesúvio. She used to receive visitors underneath this tree, which still grows today more than one hundred years later. Most famously, it was here in this courtyard that Antónia received Barão Forrester before they took their fateful journey in 1861.