I am signing off for a few days now, we will be traveling across Portugal for the next few days visiting family and friends.
The posting below attempts to describe the most extraordinary place I have ever seen, it was totally uplifting in the wonder of man and nature and I want to share it with you for Xmas. We walked this place yesterday.
Have a truely great Xmas - Will's
The Romans were here, though now long departed at first sight you could believe nothing had changed in two thousand odd years. Our day began at Cetóbriga where the ruins of the Roman village spill into the Sado, picking deep red hand made roman floor tiles from the white sand at the waters edge, marvelling at the finger indents on the underside and the tiny slash of a finger nail caught in the once soft clay; abandoned yet so alive.
We took a late light lunch in Carrasqueira; even pronouncing the word, Car…ras…que…ira, is reminiscent of the waves gently caressing the sandy shore of the lagoon, polvo dressed in a vinaigrette with onion, green peppers and a hint of fresh chilli and Sado brown shrimps, juicy, succulent as the day, washed down with cool beer. Like many small Portuguese villages, this one, barely one hundred houses, boasted six ‘tascas’ café/restaurants, the sort a sophisticated western city dweller would not enter, crude decoration, cheap fittings, none the less, serving excellent fare, pork with clams and squid stuffed with coriander, two items that would guarantee a return visit even without the extraordinary secret of Carrasqueira.
Our mission this day had been to find locations to film the traditional making of bread for the on going Bread Matters project. In that, we were unsuccessful but stumbled upon a new treasure trove of imagery. A village in the process of metamorphosis, not a complete transformation but a rebirth, a rediscovery of the old, of tradition, a fusing with the new, vibrant colour, innocent in application, shocking in intensity adorns the white stucco walls of the newer houses, blues, vermilions and yellows highlighting details of the houses in the typical Alentejo style.
The traditional houses in the village are built from thatched reeds, ‘caniços’, not just the roofs, that is common enough in parts of England and French Normandy, but also the walls, the whole pinned down by white painted wood strips in a multitude of geometric patterns. Perhaps a quarter of the village houses are of this construction, tiny little windows illuminating the interiors most often picked out, like the entrance door, in the iridescent blue. These are houses, not stores, or barns, but homes with wisps of slate grey smoke lazily drifting from chimneys filling the air with that unmistakable perfume of pine resin from the cones and needles of the surrounding umbrella pines that provide fuel through the winter months.
Around, the activity of a farming village, cockerels, red cobs flashing in the winter sun, jealously guarding hens scratching through the dirt in search of tasty morsels. The grunt of pigs, penned down by the reed beds, welcoming the farmer bringing the evening meal. Muscovy ducks and geese cackled their alert at our passing, as we headed out toward the waters edge and the rickety mooring platforms for the traditional shrimp boats.
Distant gulls maintained a mew out in the deeper water, nearby oystercatchers piped as they scuttled through the low tide mud. A grey heron, disturbed by our footfall, sprung up off the reed bed and hung suspended on outstretched wings, beating once, twice and gliding deeper into the reeds to take up station again. A pair of dogs joined our stroll, sitting and waiting like old friends when we paused to look around at the jumble of gaily coloured boats pulled into the reeds above the high water mark each named in memory of a significant personal event, a child, a wife or a saint. In the distance, a tractor worked across a field turning the rich black earth to reveal titbits for the hoards of dazzling white egrets foraging behind his passage.
The ‘palitos’, an astonishing jumble of interconnecting walkways built out into the estuary, gives access to the lagoon at all states of the tide, it transports the spirit not just from the land, but also into the creative capacity of ‘man’ to create, improvise, and perpetuate a tradition, demonstrates ‘mans’ ability to work together for the good of all. A cacophony of colour, light, reflection and smells only confuses the enormity of natures tableau revealed. What came first, the straw houses on the shore or the astonishing ‘palitos’ jetty will never be known, how they both came to be in the same place at this time is an even greater mystery. Walking back, we mused on how we had never heard of this place, yet it is less than one hour’s drive from Lisboa. The shepherd marshalled his flock toward the village as the light slowly dimmed. We greeted him and asked after his flock. He did not speak Portuguese; he was Romanian, a boy, in Portugal just a few weeks, name of ‘Teo’ meaning ‘given by God’.
Driving back to Lisbon the sky lit red behind the Arrabida mountains and the castle of Palmela silhouetted jet black with tiny pin pricks of light from the village houses sprawling down the hillside, we wondered how much of this we had seen or dreamed.
The posting below attempts to describe the most extraordinary place I have ever seen, it was totally uplifting in the wonder of man and nature and I want to share it with you for Xmas. We walked this place yesterday.
Have a truely great Xmas - Will's
The Romans were here, though now long departed at first sight you could believe nothing had changed in two thousand odd years. Our day began at Cetóbriga where the ruins of the Roman village spill into the Sado, picking deep red hand made roman floor tiles from the white sand at the waters edge, marvelling at the finger indents on the underside and the tiny slash of a finger nail caught in the once soft clay; abandoned yet so alive.
We took a late light lunch in Carrasqueira; even pronouncing the word, Car…ras…que…ira, is reminiscent of the waves gently caressing the sandy shore of the lagoon, polvo dressed in a vinaigrette with onion, green peppers and a hint of fresh chilli and Sado brown shrimps, juicy, succulent as the day, washed down with cool beer. Like many small Portuguese villages, this one, barely one hundred houses, boasted six ‘tascas’ café/restaurants, the sort a sophisticated western city dweller would not enter, crude decoration, cheap fittings, none the less, serving excellent fare, pork with clams and squid stuffed with coriander, two items that would guarantee a return visit even without the extraordinary secret of Carrasqueira.
Our mission this day had been to find locations to film the traditional making of bread for the on going Bread Matters project. In that, we were unsuccessful but stumbled upon a new treasure trove of imagery. A village in the process of metamorphosis, not a complete transformation but a rebirth, a rediscovery of the old, of tradition, a fusing with the new, vibrant colour, innocent in application, shocking in intensity adorns the white stucco walls of the newer houses, blues, vermilions and yellows highlighting details of the houses in the typical Alentejo style.
The traditional houses in the village are built from thatched reeds, ‘caniços’, not just the roofs, that is common enough in parts of England and French Normandy, but also the walls, the whole pinned down by white painted wood strips in a multitude of geometric patterns. Perhaps a quarter of the village houses are of this construction, tiny little windows illuminating the interiors most often picked out, like the entrance door, in the iridescent blue. These are houses, not stores, or barns, but homes with wisps of slate grey smoke lazily drifting from chimneys filling the air with that unmistakable perfume of pine resin from the cones and needles of the surrounding umbrella pines that provide fuel through the winter months.
Around, the activity of a farming village, cockerels, red cobs flashing in the winter sun, jealously guarding hens scratching through the dirt in search of tasty morsels. The grunt of pigs, penned down by the reed beds, welcoming the farmer bringing the evening meal. Muscovy ducks and geese cackled their alert at our passing, as we headed out toward the waters edge and the rickety mooring platforms for the traditional shrimp boats.
Distant gulls maintained a mew out in the deeper water, nearby oystercatchers piped as they scuttled through the low tide mud. A grey heron, disturbed by our footfall, sprung up off the reed bed and hung suspended on outstretched wings, beating once, twice and gliding deeper into the reeds to take up station again. A pair of dogs joined our stroll, sitting and waiting like old friends when we paused to look around at the jumble of gaily coloured boats pulled into the reeds above the high water mark each named in memory of a significant personal event, a child, a wife or a saint. In the distance, a tractor worked across a field turning the rich black earth to reveal titbits for the hoards of dazzling white egrets foraging behind his passage.
The ‘palitos’, an astonishing jumble of interconnecting walkways built out into the estuary, gives access to the lagoon at all states of the tide, it transports the spirit not just from the land, but also into the creative capacity of ‘man’ to create, improvise, and perpetuate a tradition, demonstrates ‘mans’ ability to work together for the good of all. A cacophony of colour, light, reflection and smells only confuses the enormity of natures tableau revealed. What came first, the straw houses on the shore or the astonishing ‘palitos’ jetty will never be known, how they both came to be in the same place at this time is an even greater mystery. Walking back, we mused on how we had never heard of this place, yet it is less than one hour’s drive from Lisboa. The shepherd marshalled his flock toward the village as the light slowly dimmed. We greeted him and asked after his flock. He did not speak Portuguese; he was Romanian, a boy, in Portugal just a few weeks, name of ‘Teo’ meaning ‘given by God’.
Driving back to Lisbon the sky lit red behind the Arrabida mountains and the castle of Palmela silhouetted jet black with tiny pin pricks of light from the village houses sprawling down the hillside, we wondered how much of this we had seen or dreamed.
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