We have moved to inland Portugal today and we’re finding it quite a different temperament: a little more elegant in parts, though, still, those incredible contrasts between the rich and poor prevail.
Amarante is one of those gorgeous medieval villages with an inordinate number of extraordinary churches: one with a set of cloisters that any London cathedral would be proud of.
One gruesome feature I keep forgetting to mention about the Mediterranean Catholics is their penchant for displaying corpse-like cadavers and bony stone statues of figures in various poses, or lighted caskets, to revere.
These can be any saint or converted sinner, even one deliberately bejewelled in precious stones and intricate metallic garb, decorated propaganda saints of the medieval era created to entice worshipers to the church. Often these effigies lie in rigid state in a glass-sided coffin, entombed beneath a high altar, backlit by eerie lights, or naked under white ruched satin which highlights the charred corporeal rigor mortis seizure of the body as if in a catastrophe of Pompeiic proportions.
More candles are lit by parishoners at these very visible altars than at any other – which must please the prelates immensely.
Amarante is on one of the southern caminos to Santiago de Compostella as it was founded by one of those hermits, Gonçalo, who gathered around him devoted adherents inspired to follow his footsteps and teachings. His stone tomb is a little macabre in its creation. But even more macabre and rather pagan-like in this very Christian town are the fertility rite phallic cakes for sale in the bakeries throughout Amarante, called Bolos de São Gonçalo in memory of him: a medieval hermit whose hermetic lifestyle would not lead one to think that honouring him would incline one to be more fertile.
Portugal’s campsites are in extraordinarily high places. We still haven’t worked out why.
To see Guimarães (Zhim’-ah-raish) we had to encourage our camping car up a very steep slope, again, with almost sheer drops off one side; but the campground, once there, was worth it: a municipal piece of land with more staff than it had clientele, and wonderful facilities including an Olympic sized swimming pool which only Miss Bec and I were brave enough to use, for the excellent fee of only €11.00 per night.
Somewhere we have lost contact now with any tourists who speak any English in these campsites. I can’t remember where this happened. But in France you could practically be guaranteed to find an English speaker anywhere. Even in Spain it was more probable than not. Not true in Portugal, however. At least not in these inland parts.
Another generalisation we seem to be making: Dutch tourists are the most intrepid travellers we’ve met on this trip. Even in the most remote parts where no one else goes there will be at least one Dutch camper. The Brits, as a general rule, tend to stick to the coast and head for the sun. We have seen so few Germans we can’t make any judgements about their camping habits, yet: May to June may be a little early for them: we don’t know. The French, though, have motorhoming down to a fine art. They have precise routines. They even expect the local boulangerie/patisserie/pastelerie van to turn up precisely at 9.00am in the campground with their breakfast bread. They set up long term sites, and like the Dutch seem always cheerful and good humoured.
The mountain site above Guimarães, Penha, has only three campers tonight. I think the drive up the mountain frightens everyone away. The Penha mountain is littered with religious grottoes, a church right at the peak near the campground, and bush-walking tracks web its slopes. To get quickly to and from Guimarães (it only takes 10 minutes) we used a cable car (Pete’s first experience in a cable car) with cables stretched tautly along 1.7km and up to a grand height of 400 metres.
A brilliant ride down and back to a brilliant little town.
Guimarães is probably my favourite town in Portugal to date. It has the neatest laid cobbles and meticulously swept and maintained spaces we’ve seen so far which makes this town quite a rare find in Portugal in that it is tidy, for one; and, it is so beautifully preserved and maintained. Just a joy to explore.
The town has a very noble history. After building a monastery and then a castle here (to defend the monks from the Moors, Normans and other sundry invaders) there followed the construction of wonderful Moorish-style church spires so identifiable as Portugese, along with meticulously cobbled medieval alleyways with upper level connector bridges very much like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice overhead, and neat square-cobbled arched town squares lined with upper stories of elegant old white chambers and galleried apartments.
The entire town is a location that would be an exterior decorating magazine’s favourite photo shoot opportunity.
It was in the stark and spare crenellated castle here in Guimarães where the first king of Portugal, Alfonso Henriques, was born, and, where, just a few paces down from the castle gate in a tiny simple boxy little room of a chapel, called Sao Miguel, that he was baptised.
Alfonso Henriques went on to fight the good fight founding the nation of Portugal by defeating his mother’s army from Galicia in 1128, and the nobles who died in battle supporting him were buried under this tiny chapel floor which was then paved with the sepulchres attributed to their noble houses in their honour.
These great slabs of funereal stone literally cover the chapel floor in perfect order and are deeply and richly engraved with these medieval symbols and emblems. Amazing still today. It is no wonder this historic little chapel has been classified a national monument; or that the town centre is on UNESCO’S World Heritage list.
Someone once built complete and almost lifesize tableaus of the Stations of the Cross around the town. Of the original 18, today only 5 remain, and though they have been moved at various times and restaged in various combinations throughout the ages what remains of these stations, today, is interesting.
With our usual astonishing good luck, at our last church stop in Guimarães was at the Igreja S. Francisco. We were quietly admiring the high altar when a prelate, very deliberately, came over and tapped us on the shoulder, signifying we were to follow him.
He led us into a heavily locked sacristy, then allowed us to see what we realised only later was the famous painted ceiling of the sacristy. As well, he allowed us a private viewing of a room filled with heavily jewelled religious vestments hanging in separate compartments under glass and key, along with ancient exquisite hand-embroidered silver thread on linen altar cloths, also under glass and key, and thickly ornamented pure silver and gold chalices, monstrances and other astonishing religious paraphernalia which we’d never normally see outside a religious museum, as stuff so precious is usually tucked away behind doors that only open for a hefty admission fee in such wealthy churches.
For whatever reason we were his only invited guests that day. After we left he locked up his treasures. Luck. Irish. Us.
From Guimarães we followed the Vinho Verte Route to Barcelos. Several times we have tried the ‘green wine’ this region is famous for but, so far, have yet to be enchanted. The word ‘green’ is used for some of this wine because that wine is still new. It can be red, white, still or sparkly, but if it is new it is classified as ‘verte’ or ‘green’.
Having said that, Portugal scored the world’s very first demarcated wine region, the Douro, way back in 1756. Portugal, since then, has encouraged the growth of its own traditional grapes, and it is believed it has more traditional grape varieties, over 200, than any other country in the world, and, today, Portugal ranks a strong 6th in the world as a wine producer, which is amazing given its size.
Barcelos is famous for two things: its ceramic production and its cock legend. This red-combed cockeral is very identifiable as a Portugese symbol on many a festive occasion.
Again, with unbelievable luck we arrived in Barcelos on a Sunday (our first fine sunny Sunday in Europe this trip!) when there just happened to be a ceramics market in the main square, and an artisan studio in town opening its doors on that fine afternoon that we were there.
The ceramics of the region are hand-thrown functional pieces most in a heavily-decorated brown glaze -- or a simple country-chic blue and white glaze. And I loved these. They reminded me of country milk-jug crafts. The artisan pieces downtown were mostly grotesque myth-like figures, oddly conceived, though brilliantly coloured.
Along with the ceramics displayed in every store and stall, Barcelos carries products sporting the figure or the symbol of a high-standing red-combed cockerel which traces its misty history back to a lovely old tale which charms children to this day.
Once, much to the horror of the religious townsfolk, a stone cross was mutilated in the town. Eventually, a suspect, a man from Galicia enroute to Santiago de Compostella on a pilgrimage, was charged, found guilty and sentenced to hang, despite loudly protesting his innocence.
On the morning of his hanging, as his last wish, the pilgrim was allowed to visit the hanging magistrate in his dining room. There he beseeched him and his family to believe him. The pilgrim announced that if he was hanged it would be unjust, and that the townsfolk would know that he surely spoke the truth at the very moment of his hanging, as the roast chicken lying on the Magistrate’s dinner table would rise up and crow three times.
Truth tells.
At the precise moment that the hanging was scheduled to take place the roast chicken rose up (on stunted hind legs?) and crowed three healthy raucous times.
The judge, and the baffled townfolk, rushed out of the dining room through to the town square attempting to save the poor pilgrim.
This they were able to do, as the knot in the hangman’s rope had fortuitously stuck, saving the man of Galicia from certain death.
And so the crowing cock of Barcelos is a symbol of truth, fairness and all that is right and good in the world, and images of it abound in this tiny town and throughout the country.
In Barcelos, we saw two of the most breathtaking churches we have ever seen: one completely decked out in walls of azulejos tiles. From top to toe. Truly remarkable. I loved it. It also had a statue of the Blessed Virgin stabbed to the very visible heart with close to a dozen sharp, effective, real silver daggers. Lots of votive candles were lit for her, too.
The other (the priest on guard would allow absolutely no photographs) was a circular church, Igreja do S. Bom Jesus da Cruz. This was a near-perfect church in terms of proportion and sheer beautiful lines. It sported only black studded leather trestles, as seating: most with no backs. Very cool.
And apart from its perfect shape and symmetry this tiny church was decorated extraordinarily: every low and high square inch of the place, even tiers that surely had to be reached by high ladders on to its high altar, were covered in masses (plane-loads!) of pure white scented flowers of the expensive imported variety: white orchids, white roses, white lilies. All fresh. Probably hot house. No doubt costing an absolute goldmine.
Yet outside, in Portugal’s streets, crippled beggars go starving.
It makes absolutely no sense.
So many people in Portugal are maimed. So many without a limb or more. So many beggars. So many on crutches. So many with so little.
We’ve heard that the minimum wage in Portugal is between 400-450€ a month. Impossible to survive.
Some things are hard to reconcile.
As luck would again have it, June is the month for Festivals and a great time to visit Portugal. Much of this has to do wit the Luke gospel that points out that John the Baptist was born six months before Christ, so celebrating the birth of John in June has become a tradition that honours the birth of Christ later in December. On this glorious June Sunday in Barcelos we were treated to a surprise parade of regional brass bands processing through the town square doing complex and fascinating routines of the like we have not seen attempted in Australia since we were little. As well, every bombardier (fire fighting engine) within cooee was lined up to do a drive by. Everyone in town turned out including local dignitaries on stage and there was much music and joy in the streets.
Streets, which just happened to be heavily decorated with festive three-story-high temporary structures all arrayed in a fantastic row down one side of the town square. These were decorative and symbolic church gate arches and, every year, are apparently newly-built and displayed during religious folk festivals, when every parish in the region dresses its own high parish church gate arch and mounts it in the Barcelos village square for all to see for the entire summer.
These quaint old-fashioned customs abound everywhere in Portugal.
We are now in Braga. We are here because it is Saint Joao’s (Saint John the Baptist’s) feast day tomorrow and the celebrations everywhere are huge. They started here before we arrived yesterday and will go late until tomorrow (also Rebecca’s birthday).
St Joao’s feast day is often bigger than Christmas.
So far we have been partying since daytime fireworks and night time raucous music first marked our days and nights way back in Santiago de Compostella.
It is as if Spain and Portugal have entered this treaty to keep us royally entertained with feast days, festivals, floats and fairy floss for every day in June.
This week in Braga is almost unbelievable. A long street market lines the entire main street. Our campground is about 600 metres from the noisy city centre which is the heart of the festival activities.
We can hear every whisper that goes on.
Tonight it will not stop: we will walk the streets of Braga and will have our heads banged with garlic flowers or plastic hammers in good cheer. Rebecca will have more than her share, given that her feast day aligns with Saint John's. Like last night we shall eat on the street and finish on fartura from the churro shops. These are like long strings of deep fried doughnuts wound into massive vats of hot boiling oil from fairly primitive dough dispensers, then sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar. Or Pao com Courico, sliced smoked sausage wrapped completely inside torn hunks of fresh dough, made right there in the streets as you watch the yeast rise; cooked over a wood-fired street oven before your very eyes. For €2.00 a piece. Utterly mouthwatering.
Portugal is cheaper for eating out than Australia. Pete is so smitten with prices he might decide to move here!
Coffee for three (one espresso and two con lait) today cost under €2.00. Haircuts for three, with shampoo and blow-dry and the works, totalled just €20.00.
For dinner we ended up eating an entire barbecued chicken mutilated into a flat piece with a sharp knife and a mallet, skewered and charred on a hot coal barbecue outside a beautifully decorated gypsy tent in the festival grounds, accompanied by the seasonal and delicious charred green peppers and a raw onion salad.
This, after we had long watched folk bands in traditional costumes from many regions of Spain and Portugal dance and sing their way through the city centre.
In the cathedral, tens of thousands of expensive imported lipstick flowers, each individually wrapped in cellophane, were brought in by the crate load from the airport, then had to be split open and sorted in order to decorate all the religious statues which are to be in the sacred procession tomorrow.
We can't quite come to grips with the cost of decorating not only the churches, but the cities like Braga, Porto, and every other part of northern Portugal, which this month has to be decked out like Blackpool, though in flowers as well as lights.
Long high decorative arches have been swung across full street widths all over villages, towns and cities every ten metres or so. Electricians have followed along and wired them all up with multi-coloured lights. Council men on ladders, on bleachers and mass-tiered seating for concerts and processions, have been so busy decorating every visible things that the pot-holes in the roads grow deeper by the hour, day, week.
And as soon as the Festival is over they have to spend weeks taking it all down and storing it. They must have whole hidden massive warehouses where all these things are stored.
And this happens year after year.
All night on the 23 June, Braga partied. All night long.
Street processions started at 9 am in the morning and went on and off all day until well passed midnight. Fireworks, next door to our campsite, started at 2.10am. Yes, that was a.m., and went non-stop for 20 minutes. Music from fair grounds, stalls, and machines barely stopped.
Becka’s birthday bang.
We went to bed late and slept what little sleep we had plugged up with airline earplugs.
At 6, this morning, the festival music stopped briefly. At 9am it was in full swing again. Tonight, in the stadium next door to the campground a rock band is scheduled to start its gig at midnight. And there are to be more fireworks. By 10.30am this morning as we packed our bits and bobs and left Braga, the partying crowds were back in the streets as thickly as they had been just hours before.
Tonight the party might finish.
We are moving on. Exhausted but amused. It has all been a bit much, a little like China crowds on steroids. The fairground music, the festival megaphones, the noise, the mass crowds, the chaos. It sounds and looks so very similar. Right down to the street sweepers trying to stay one push ahead of ten tons of street litter. And, as in China, they do an exemplary cleaning up job each morning. We need sleep. We must move on.
Today we drove the most beautiful winding panoramic route through the lovely mountains and lakes of the National Park of Geres (in the mountains just north of Bucos, Andy and Les!) and found this to be the most scenic part of Portugal, to date.
At the end of the day, though, our last in Portugal, we arrived in a very dry area. Barely 11 kilometres from Spain tonight. Inland.
The land around is all dry-gulch country littered with rocks and wiry rolling sage brush that could easily feature in a John Wayne movie.
Luckily, we are camped at a Quinta just south of Chaves (Char-vish), which is green and heavy with trees and birdsong, and sports three kidney-shaped swimming pools if you dare. The water is ice. A lovely old wooden wagon is featured in our camping space, which shows how the casks of port had been laden to be carried downriver to be loaded on to the beautiful barco rabellos headed for the warehouses in Porto.
Outside the campground, down the dusty road a tired old farmer heads home from work in his clopping horse-drawn wagon.
Portugal has been anything but predictable.
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| The Castle of Guimarães |
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| Love the sign - promising craftsman in Guimarães |
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| The medieval knights sepulchre in chapel at Guimarães |
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| Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Terco Barcelos church tiles |
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| Phallic cakes in Amarante |
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| Cobbles and market in Amarante |
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| Sculpture "Digital impression" by Paulo Neves, is located next to the Alberto Sampaio Museum, Guimarães, Portugal |
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| A 14th century Salado war memorial in the heart of Guimarães |
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| Igreja de Sao Francisco, Guimarães |
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| Stations of the Cross or wayside shrines in the old town of Guimaraes |
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| Enroute to Barcelos |
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| Whimsical ceramics in the Barcelos street market |
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| Église de Bom Jesus da Cruz, Barcelos |
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| Decorative church gate structures lining Barcelos street |
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| Miss Bec amid the garlic flowers |
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| Plastic hammers were sold by the hundreds to bop the heads of passersby |
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| Fartura being made at the festival |
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| Birthday beauty |
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| Sao Miguel chapel where Alfonso Henriques was baptised, |
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| Stone tombs |
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| Cable car from Penha mountains |
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| Rooster of Barcelos |
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| Clopping home at the end of the day |
