When I finally made the trip visiting the Agua de Prata workshop it was the highlight of my visit to Evora. Roman era temple? For what we came. Pre-history Cromeleques? Saw them. But Nossa Senhora Da Graça Do Divor… Conquer me!

The studio is situated on an enviably pretty hill, next to a notable church on a gently undulating Alentejan plain, dotted with the ancient water wells that supplied Roman Evora its silver water, agua de prata.

The wool producing town of Arraiolos is about 15kms away, and supplies the artist, João Videira, with the wool with which he reinvents and revives old furniture frames and other objects. There’s a magic fusion that happens between the old framework and the intensely coloured wool that creates an altogether new and beautiful design piece. The warmth of the recollected meets the tactile wool in a way that makes this furniture irresistible; it’s at once modern and antique, designer and personal, precious and cuddly.

And the recycled and recreated philosophy fits perfectly with the concept for my house. By taking what has heritage and soul and stripping back the parts that have deteriorated. Then restructuring and repairing those bones for a modern use, adapting outdated living concepts for today’s needs and integrating modern desires for comfort and pleasure. The result is honestly beautiful, luxurious and unique furniture of character and simplicity.

Collecting designer furniture is all very well, but I can’t see the point if the pieces are not useable and personal to you. You see so many houses in magazines with the standard Eames chair, as ubiquitous as a Warhol print rip off and equally unoriginal. Agua de Prata is the antithesis of this. It’s even easier to fill your house with cheap mass produced furniture, which looks OK for a month and in a year is downright awful. I’d prefer to buy one quality piece I adore, and have an empty house, or even use furniture hire temporarily until I can afford to buy something else.

My favourite things from Agua de Prata are, naturally,  the Pedras de Lã, Wool Rocks. At first glance their organic shape made me curious about the support around which the wool is carefully wrapped. Their weight gives nothing away, except that inside they couldn’t be hollow. Nor are the stones hard; they have a sponginess that adds to the organic characteristic of their shape. The answer is, that the Pedras are solid wool, a ball so carefully and tightly bound that it has taken on its own natural form, and like all the Agua de Prata works, is individual and unique.

And if you’re passing the town through at lunchtime, as we were, wondering where all the folk could be, tuck your head into the first café on the left, which will be packed and dishing out delicious local plates with atmosphere and conviviality. Happiness all round.

http://aguadeprata.blogspot.com/

Thus somehow we arrived at Coimbra train station with 60 kilos of luggage and The One desperate for a pee. Train arrives, train departs, husband returns from men’s room. We buy new tickets for the next train which might get us to the check-in in the nick of time, with the kind cooperation of a taxi driver on speed. Once this feat was accomplished, Emma discovers she has no passport. Of the hundreds and hundreds of flights I have caught in my little life and it has to be this one: a great gorgeously generous gift from my sister-in-law to surprise my brother on his 50th birthday. This flight could not be missed. This could not be happening.

I’ll spare you the next half hour of head exploding panic in its gruesome detail. The passport was located, a new seat found for me on the next flight (lucky, lucky) and husband sent forward to Frankfurt on the existing ticket. Good friends, who will drive your passport to you two and a half hours away, are the most important thing in the world. And yes, I am your slave for life. Anyway, a couple of valium and several hundred kilometres later and The One and I were boarding our Qantas flight for Sydney only to discover we’d been downgraded.

Two more valium later and we arrived in Old Sydney Town and to husband’s delight we were picked up in a caramel butter-coloured Maserati. Even I had to restrain myself from licking the upholstery. It set the tone really for what would be three weeks of luxy decadent bliss, oh except for the sanding painting cleaning & repairing part. Let’s skip that story for now and start with the champagne-museum-of-contemporary-art-party-overlooking-sydneyharbourbridge-and-opera-house… in full jetlag, it was quite surreal.

The first thing The One did on his holiday was get a new girlfriend. Every time I turned my back they were in bed together. It got a bit embarrassing when our dear hostess would wonder where the hell her cat was and would search all the usual hiding places like sock drawers, lumps of washing and inside the hi-fi speakers, only to find that the guest was bed-hogging her, like, again. The thing with the Burmese is they have a supersonic sense of who is most likely to get horizontal regularly, and The One smells like an immanent lie-down.

So then we spent a week of surveying the damage to my other property asset abroad. Tenants, mate. Can’t pay mortgage without them, can’t kill ‘em. Broken leg on coffee table, sofa, and dining table, filth smeared from aft to fore, damage to this and that and a charming hole punched into a wardrobe door. So we filled sanded painted repaired and cleaned in sensational 37º heat, when we should have been at the beach, hanging out with friends, visiting mom, or lying around with the cat. Sorry darling. Nice holiday. Not.

Fortunately our hosts (oh let’s be frank. You remember tinyartdirector? Well she’s my sister and we are staying with her) had some sense and whisked us away for an enviable long weekend which looked like this:

Some whales dropped by for our appreciation. And hung around for three days smashing their tails on the water and mucking about. Priceless. I know it sounds coy but whales really are something special. They are so damn big and out of our league, you can’t help but gobblesmacked by them. We certainly were. Better than tele.

The One insisted on seeing kangaroos in the wild. We got dressed, packed our hats and sunscreen and even locked the door of the timber shack holiday house such was the anticipation of the hunt. An extremely short drive later, there were half a dozen roos posing for our photos, racing the Volvo and just staring us out as if to say yeah, take the pictures and bugger off, would ya?

There’s no doubt about it, kangaroos are funny animals. Firstly they look funny. And like camels, they have attitude. A sort of, what do you want, yeah come as close as you want I couldn’t give a toss and now I’m bored of you, type attitude. They are one of those rare animals who is firmly in control of the situation. Piss me off and I’ll kick your arse. They are cool.

So. Whales, tick. Kangaroos, tick. Savage sunburn on pommy skin, tick. Prawns on the barbie, naturally.

But then as some people have to work, we returned to Sydney and yet another week of culinary sensations. Thai, Japanese, quality beef, real lamb, Pacific Ocean fish and even bacon and eggs on damper breakfast at 3pm. My superfluous sister-in-law had also remembered our wedding anniversary (who is this woman and why can’t we all marry her) and sent us off to The Best Restaurant in The World, Tetsuyas. Extraordinary. Unforgettable. Quite difficult to find the words for its awesomeness, other than, say, perfect.

Somewhat staggered by everyone’s generosity towards us we loaded up our trunks and headed, sadly, for the airport. We did not want to come home, not one little bit. Not to winter, not to house building, not to the pressing need to make a living out of an oily rag.

And we wouldn’t be flying if they wasn’t some sort of industrial action impeding our trip. Qantas on the way over (CEO of which is a dipshit) and now a Portuguese general strike on the return trip. I am a card carrying socialist but I reckon the strike cost me way more than it cost Paulo Passos Coelho. Not to mention my sister-in-law. I’m sure the general strike in Portugal really changed her mind on a few policies.

Thus a day or two were endured in the most boring city on Earth, Frankfurt. And jetlag and minus 1º centigrade do not agree with me. Christmas Markets still do not charm me. The German language does not charm me. Sausages and Gluhwein make me puke. Just get me home, oh god, where there are some little fur-people waiting for me.

And a fine week of touring it was, not for the Portuguese in the same train carriage as mother and two daughters wept with laughter while mother played the The One’s hand of our seminal game of tricks and trumps. An impossible-to-explain-rooted-in-family-history moment that all reunions should be made of.

the living lounge hostel, lisbon and santa clara a velha, coimbra

Nothing hurts quite like going back to work after a break. The One and I failed to turn up on Monday and then spent Tuesday and Wednesday giving ourselves a collective hernia with things that were too hard and we did not have the energy nor strength to do. By Thursday we were both practically sick and stayed away. The next week though, with one woofer back on board, I managed to get a few things done: how excellent it is to have someone around who does everything in half the time I do.

pinhal do urso, central coast

And so to the subject of amateurs and expectations. Sometime I’ll draw up a list for the first time owner-builder-Portugal and probably beside the first number they’ll be don’t get disheartened when you find you can do only half the things you thought you could/would. Or make that a tenth. I am all bravo and força, sure, and if left alone I’ll do practically anything, but send in a few more experienced persons and watch my violet shrink. Not out of lack of guts you see, more out of the intelligence that they’ll be doing a better job and a good house is not a place for amateur crapola. Hear me humbled.

osso da baleia, whale bone beach, central portugal

Humbled again am I by the scale of tasks still ahead. We were meant to be moving in yesterday and there’s more to do than I can make a list of. This week I’m chucking everything I’ve got at it: we are camping out with the woofers and hitting it hard.

moreton bay fig in quinta das lagrimas, coimbra

Meanwhile I’ve still got what seems extremely trivial stuff to be organised. As soon as the family were on the plane The One dropped me off at the shops, finding sofas and tiles and salamandras. Really I’d rather be sanding the windows.

alfama, lisboa

Indeed, the windows… loyal readers might remember a nicely popular post about the windows I bought and was/still am restoring. The update, two or what years later is that despite the project being lost some delicious windows and doors remain in the plan. The favourite Pombaline ones haven’t found a place yet, but the French ones that have been chosen for size are coming up a treat. Did anyone suggest using an angle grinder to strip them? Yes, like using a combine harvester to trim roses, but with a delicate feminine hand it is possible to achieve a brutal but satisfactory result. Mindblowingly quickly. Another thing about having 20 year old workers around: they don’t care for petty perfectionism, they just get on with one job to make way for the next. Once my attitude to getting a short film made: Don’t Make it Perfect – Just Get it Done. As for all that double glazing palaver: timber shutters and velvet curtains.

the toys going posh at the palacio de lousã

Anyway, I have about 37 windows and doors left over – if nothing else I’ll have the best greenhouse in the country.

Once upon a time in the tiny town of Castanheira de Pera there lived a boy who dreamt of big things. Like many boys he wanted to build, with tools and cranes and trucks. He lived at time of great prosperity and optimism, as since the previous century Castanheira de Pera had grown fat on the profits of linen making, its factories brimming with happy workers and an unrivalled supply and demand.

The Castanheirense were a proud people, and rightfully so. The patriarchal hand of Salazar blessed them and their dues and Castanheira flourished in a devout, obedient and Sporting sort of way. The great gardens blossomed and the people built fine houses to live in. Castanheira’s streets were as grand as any in Lisbon. The Castanheirense felt special, privileged, enough to speak their own language, a cautious melée of Latin and Portuguese called Laínte de Casconha, so that outsiders would not know what they were saying.

It was in this setting that the boy who would be The Mayor of Big Things grew up. His youth was fired with ambition and confidence, but as adulthood beckoned Castanheira’s fortunes started to change. The regime was no longer there to protect them from the outside world where fabrics were made more cheaply with modern machines. Young people had different ideas and brought change and disruption. Families favoured by the old system were now spurned by the new and many fled to safety in Brazil, abandoning their stately homes.

And worst of all of the disgraces, other nearby tiny towns, those lacking any heritage or respectable family names, began to grow, modernise and be recognised.

Meanwhile Castanheira’s elegance began to fade. The people no longer spoke their secret language and the factories fell silent. It enraged Abilio Anibal Aurindo de Silva Fonseca Salazar Alves de Piedade Conceiçao Pena – or Zé, as he was known to his bosoms, to see his town dwindle into insignificance. He resolved to redeem Castanheira’s reputation and fame.

On a platform of development which embraced the modern ideas of tourism, expansion and urbanisation, The Mayor of Big Things came to power in the tiny town. The people were intoxicated by his big ideas and his even bigger personality. Riding the tsunami of a mandate, The Mayor embarked on his first Big Project: a gargantuan swimming pool, the biggest in the entire country, designed in the image of an exotic beach, replete with an island, blue palm trees and best of all, a machine that made waves.

“Build it Big and They Will Come”, the Mayor had said. And the Praia de Rocas was thus. The people came from far and wide to experience the beach of the interior, under the blazing sun of the Portuguese summer. They brought their big eskies, their big floaties and the sensible ones brought their big hats and they took their place in the big long queue that formed every morning at the gates of the megapool.

Fortified by his popularity The Mayor of Big Things carried on his campaign to drag the old dame of Castanheira kicking and screaming into the modern world. Big Art began to appear at every crossroads, every square and to dominate over every pathetic patch by the side of the road. When no more public space was available, the Mayor, in another fantastic moment of enlightenment, invented the roundabout. He set about demonstrating his new creation following the posturing style of the Romans and the Soviets. Enormity ruled. But it wasn’t traffic dispersion that was the driving his concept: The island at the centre of the triple-lane-super-rotundas was opportunity for Really Big Sculptural Statements.

His artistic sensibilities mollified, The Mayor of Big Things turned his attention to business and recreation. He built a Big Business Park called Prazilandia for want of a bigger and better name. And then he built a Big Concert space, where he gave some big speeches. When there was nothing to do he built big signs. Not last and not least (never least), and arguably his greatest legacy, he had erected the Big Fake Grass Rat.

The Mayor was, at last, almost out of big ideas. It was a long career. In his final years, he cleared some massive areas in preparation for the big future ahead. A big supermarket perhaps? A big housing project?

Who knows, because the people never came. The only space in Castanheira de Pera that serves the heaving sweaty masses is the big pool (and occasionally the nearest pastelaria). But otherwise the public squares remain empty, the roundabouts lonely for traffic, the offices vacant, the monuments untouristed. And yet, big cranes still decorate the landscape with their odour of potential, prosperity and big dreams.

This post is almost entirely fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Quite good cake can be found at the Esplanada and Antigone, but the coffee at Esplanada is better, and wookies can run around on the grass, but watch out for the moles.

From someone else I heard that all these little holes in walls were hiding spots for the tungsten that farmers dug from their land during the Second World War, to sell to the Germans. WW2? Now I was fully sucked in.

Despite Salazar’s Estado Novo having much in common with the 1930′s dictatorships of Italy and Germany, Portugal was bound by a 500 year old alliance with Britain and was somehow able (unified with fascist Spain) to remain neutral. Salazar apparently didn’t like Hitler anyway. This doesn’t mean Portugal missed the war, of course, but instead played a discreet double hand with both sides. During the war, Portugal was a place of intrigue: of espionage, of refuge for the rich and escape for the Jews, and of favours played out to keep both the Axis and the Allies appeased. And Salazar was paid in gold.

Whether or not the large deposits of wolframite ore that Portugal had had anything to do with the negotiations for neutrality can be debated. In any case, the Germans needed to secure a supply of tungsten (which comes from wolframite or scheelite ore) for use in the manufacture of weapons.

Tungsten, today most commonly used in the filament of light bulbs and halogen lighting, was then a vital component to strengthen alloys (metal combinations) and made armaments more heat resistant.

Salazar granted concessions to both the English and the Germans for several mines in the Alentejo, the Beira Alto and around Castelo Branco in the East. Thus began Portugal’s Black Gold rush. High unemployment and a depressed rural economy provoked thousands and thousands of young people, farmers and entrepreneurial types to leave their homes for the mines.

Firstly, the Germans and English provided fairly paid employment for miners, people (normally women) to wash the ore and in the processing factories. They were accommodated and fed. But perhaps more exciting was the widespread illegal mines run by freelance prospectors and by local landowners. The finds by these prospectors were sold to the Germans, or to the English, via intermediaries. There was also a side-industry of forgery.

And fortunes were being made! Even just having a job in the mines, a worker might earn the rough equivalent of €5 a day, and while not extravagant, it did have a lot more buying power in 1942 than it does today. It was highly preferable to the misery of ration tickets, and for some, a weeks’ wages was more money than they had ever seen. The bigger bucks was made by individual prospectors. Stories of men rolling cigarettes with 100$00 notes, using taxis and hired cars, illiterate men sporting parker pens in their breast pockets, of stays in luxury hotels with prostitutes, and fables of villagers trying to buy trains, or even whole railways emerged. The train story still circulates today, apparently much to the embarrassment of the current residents of the village.

In reality, a new sector of country people could afford to educate their children, build houses and see a doctor. The search for tungsten and the promise of riches lifted the spirits and gave hope to the disadvantaged rural communities of 1940′s Portugal.

As the war wore on, the price of tungsten began to drop and by 1944 Salazar had began to tire of German gold and to favour the Allies. The British motive had always been to deprive the Germans of as much tungsten as possible, and now they had began a more precise campaign to disrupt mining. On their side was that the towns had begun to fill with sick men and young widows in black. Frequent accidents and the ubiquitous health problems of the miners tinged the vibrant reputation of the mines. But there had been an environmental impact as well. Rivers full of dead fish and contaminated drinking water directly contributed to the local people’s resentment of the continued German presence. The British capitalised on this by encouraging dissent which even led to minor skirmishes at some mines. With the war turning in favour the Allies, Churchill finally convinced Salazar to kick the Germans out.

So today, all that remains are some strange little villages with ruins of large factories and company housing. In Arouce, one the main centres of tungsten mining, there is an unexpected aura of wealth in the town planning, but we saw no obvious sign of mansions, art deco style theatres or grand hotels. Only the stories live on. But they have nothing to do with the little doors in the walls.

We were initially thwarted by the rain and a disruption in the space-time continuum that made it take four hours to drive down instead of the usual two. When we finally arrived in Sintra Vila, the President got in our way. I thought it was rather busy, even for a Sunday, and then the Cavaco Silva flags started appearing. Thousands of PSP supporters, aka Tories, Liberals & Republicans had taken all the parking spaces. It was all too stressful. We ordered a pot of tea at the nearest place. His Presidentialness came, saw, did a 20 second soundbite and then it was all clear and a green light for us to launch the mission.

We started, as you do, with our mantra, A Quick Tour is a Good Tour. Fortunately the wind was on our backs; the first Palácio was closing in 45 minutes. Recommended tour time 1.5 hours. Perfect.

#1. Palácio Nacional de Sintra.

Hiding behind its comparatively boring facade are some fabulous azulejos, brilliant ceilings and nice birdy decoration. The kitchen is good too.

The story is that this palace’s foundations date back to the 10th century Moorish occupation. Portugal’s first King, Afonso I, took over the palace in the 12th c. and did some remodelling. In the 12th-13th c. it was remodelled again by King Dom Dinis and then again by João I in the 15th c., whose work is most of what you can see today. João takes credit for our favourite room, with its magpie decorated ceiling. Later in the 15th and into the 16th c. it was renovated again by Manuel I who was loaded with funds from the Age of Discoveries. Fortunately this was a man with money and taste. They even named an architectural style after him.

So far the palace has Gothic, Mudejar (Arabic) and now the curly, feminine and hyper-decorative Manueline architectural style.

During this medieval period the palace was used as a hunting lodge, a summer house and as a haven from the plagues of Lisbon. In 1775 it had to be fully restored after the massive earthquake. Sintra hit another fashionable period in the 19th century and the palace was again more frequented by royalty. After the 1910 fall of the monarchy, it was again redecorated and restored and became a museum and national monument in 1940. It has world heritage listing.

Night was upon us, so after a smashing dinner at the Cantinho do São Pedro, we went to a nameless bar that served beers topped up with brandy and then onto safari-disco-nights club where we drank several margaritas and did the bus-stop with an Argentinian football team. Someone invited us to a party at the Argentine Embassy which had a swing orchestra and champagne served by butlers wearing tangerine-coloured tuxedos. The white truffle and turtle-dove canapés were terrific, but we couldn’t stay long as the sun was rising and we needed a little kip before getting back on the job as soon as the palaces opened.

Day two. The pressure was on. Three more palaces. We donned our gucci sunglasses and headed out into what was to be a truly glamorous day.

#2. Palácio do Monserrate

This former private home was built in 1858 by an Englishman with tonnes of dough and no shortage of imagination and style. The architectural style is Mughal (best known example of Murgwaline architecture is none other than the Taj Mahal). It’s surprising how at home it looks in Portugal, what with its similarity to Moorish design and Portugal’s connection to India. On the other hand, it is a house like no other I’ve ever seen. It is utterly extraordinary.

Sir Francis Cook (at the time the third richest man in Britain) was a art collector and a keen gardener and his house is surrounded by a magnificent, exotic, 30 hectare garden. This park contains plants from all over the world, including Australia, which surely must have been added later than the original plantings before Cook bought the place.

Monserrate Palace is undergoing restoration. It was privately owned by the family of Cook until the 20th c. when it was bought by a developer who intended to split up the land and sell it piecemeal. In a momentary flash of enlightenment the government of Mr António Salazar decided it would be worth saving it as state property, and then promptly forgot about it for forty years. I believe the entire house could be visited by appointment before these restorations began (probably to help fund what must be a gazillion euro project), but only the ground floor was available for us. I can’t wait to see the whole thing finished, it will be phenomenal.

Mid morning now, time for tea. There is an excellent tea room in the gardens, with real tea and scrumptious little cakey business on the side. We needed it.

#3. Palácio Nacional da Pena

Disney meets the royal family. This palace is so much fun that I nearly always take visitors here. I love it. The royals, Ferdinand and Maria helped design it and they must have had a sense of humour. As modern as Monserrate, this summer palace was built c1850. Apparently they employed an amateur architect from Germany, and certainly it has the whimsy of the fairytale castles of Bavaria.

The style is called Romanticism which is really just a bit of this and that from everything gone before. It’s eclectic. It’s high camp.

The strange thing about Pena is the interior. Ornate as it is, with neo-baroque painted marble pillars, manueline stonework, trompe l’oeils and prettiness galore, there is barely enough room to swing a cat. You’d think it was built for hobbits. Low ceilings, corridors that have no where to go but to pass through bedrooms and servant’s quarters, offices no bigger than broom cupboards. It’s a royal doll’s house.

Pena is built very high in the hills of Sintra. Indeed on our visit it was in the clouds. With rain. No we didn’t see the gardens. Yes we took the stupid little trolley car. The fog was a photographic handicap, so I’ve included pics from a sunnier trip.

It was time for tea again. I recall that the cafe at Pena was forgettable. Que pena!

#4. Palácio de Queluz

Yes, we’re on the home straight now. We are storming through these palaces like Arnie through the jungle.

Queluz is not in Sintra, actually, it’s about halfway to Lisbon. Described as the Versailles of Portugal I expected a likeness similar to the way Aveiro is to Venice. For those who haven’t been to Venice, that is. Not simliar.

Obviously large from the outside and suitably pink, my jaded third-palace-of-the-day eyes, began to sparkle with curiosity. On entering the first room, I had to eat my words.

Of course it’s no where near the size of Versailles but the palace of Queluz is gorgeous. French rococco indeed. Mainly built in the 1750′s by Prince Dom Pedro and niece/wife/Queen Maria I who was Portugal’s first Queen, inheriting the monarchy from her father King José I. The project had been started by King João V, Dom Pedro’s father, so it basically belonged to Pedro although it was also in part inheritated by João’s successor José. Queluz continued its construction during his reign, but after the Lisbon earthquake José suffered from claustrophobia and moved the royal family to live in tents in Ajuda. He gave the palace to Maria, already married to her uncle 23 years her senior. The marriage was a famously happy one and they had 6 children.

After the death of her husband Maria started to go mad, here in this very palace. Retrospective diagnosis would have her suffering from Porphyria, the same as England’s George III. But in those days she was just plain mad. It would be understandable if she was living at Mafra, built by her grandfather João V, with its Vatican-like vast proportions (impossible to heat) and its vulgar ostentation. But this, Queluz, is delightful. It’s impossible to imagine anyone’s harrowing screams here. The design is so musical that we had to resist the urge to skip and dance through the rooms.

We skipped into the gardens instead and admired their loveliness, especially the Bernini inspired fountain. Every corner of the exterior from the gardens is photographic. But then it started to rain and we found that we were lost. The signs to the exit were both few and obscure. We ran around the gardens screaming and going hither and thither, getting wetter and now needing a little ladies room. After three and a half hours we were finally saved when my sister saw an open door, amongst so many doors, back into the palace.

We were very much in need of a cup of tea then. Unlike Mafra, the rest of Queluz town is rather unfortunate. It’s ugly, and we couldn’t find a half decent cafe. It wasn’t right to end the day like this after such a successful mission. Especially as I’d unwittingly left the best palace ’til last.

Four palaces in 24 hours was enough. I wouldn’t recommend more, even if you have no interest in tea or photography. It just shouldn’t be attempted. You’d get palaced-out. There are more palaces in Sintra to see, however. Next time I’m going to Quinta da Regaleira, and outside Sintra there are even more Royal Palaces. When will it end?

Build it Big And They Will Come, the architects must have thought. Or else, the Termas da Curia were pulling healthy enough and wealthy enough crowds to warrant such an extravagant hotel as this. Welcome to Curia, the almost forgotton spa-resort town near Mealhada in Central Portugal.

Spas and hot springs have been used since prehistoric times for treatment of ailments via mineral-infused spring waters. The curative properties of natural waters were believed in by the ancient Greeks and Romans and baths continued to be used throughout the middle ages. Only notable is the time (in the western world) when bathing was thought to be unhealthy, for periods during the more religious middle ages and briefly in the mid 19th century. Otherwise we’ve liked a good hot bath, a massage, a steam, a scrub and good clean drink since time immemorial. It’s a global phenomenon too – from the Onsen in Japan to the great baths of Bucharest and the Hammams from Turkey to Morocco.

The modern spa epoch came in the 18th and 19th centuries, when spas were built across Europe in the classical style, following the Roman design. By the 20th century the spa had been thoroughly adopted by the leisurely wealthy and resort style spas included charming recreational sidelines to their quasi-medical regimes. Tennis, fine wines and caviar came alongside some liver cleansing or treating your rheumatism.

Hence, this rather classy megalith of a hotel next to the Termas da Curia. It has its own pool, gorgeous french gardens and plenty of grounds for say a spot of coits after you’ve had your sinuses drained. Smashing.

Today Portuguese people are still sent by their family doctor to the springs to receive treatment. Every spa has a specific remedy and the Termas da Curia’s waters are good for gallstones, so I’m reliably informed by the staff. There were people there young and old, who were on a 7 day course of water massage. What do I have to do to get gallstones, I’d like to know.

I love the Termas’ menu of treatments. Scottish bath, Vichy, Leque, Bertholet; I had to ask what each of them were in detail so I might avoid a colonic irrigation by mistake. Plus I was sending my sister in for a number 8 and had to check for her as well. She was up for a Vichy shower, a massage with water jets. I assured her that given how prudish and traditional the Portuguese are (say, compared to the Swedes) she would most likely have a female masseuse. We had planned to go nude – not in bikinis as in the brochure. Just to prove how much I know, she got a hairy giant of a man, about 50 kilos overweight who grunted as he worked on her shoulders and wore only a tiny modesty towel. It was I who was massaged by the comely nursey professional. Ah.. another adventure in Portugal she won’t forget. My younger-sister credibility goes down the drain again.

I always thought Citânia de Briteiros was an early middle ages Celtic settlement but it is nothing of the kind. Part of what makes it interesting is that archaeologists, past and present, don’t really agree on who the people living there were. Plus, despite being studied for more than a century there is still a large amount of mystery and much yet to be discovered.

As many archaeological sites are, Briteiros is beautiful. It helped that we were there in the late afternoon when the soft light and long shadows added to the quietly abandoned atmosphere. For me, what else makes it beautiful is the masonry work on some of the houses; semi square stones of similar size are set on the diagonal in a circular beehive-like way. I’ve never seen that style before. Perhaps it is engineeringly obsolete, but the light granite diamonds look rather pretty.

The story is this. From 1874 Francisco Martins Sarmento began excavating the site every year which led him to buying the land and discovering most of what is now above ground today. He restored some of the walls and recreated two of the round houses (but apparently he wasn’t happy with the results). Francisco was a pioneer of scientific photography in Portugal, so there exists a set of pre-20th century photos. Very cool. As well he left us a topographical study done in 1892, and tonnes of notes and a book, so there’s a good record of what was initially discovered. The site was named a national monument in 1910 – so therefore Francisco’s find was recognised as genuine and historically important.

circular remains of houses in a family compound

During the 1930′s to the 60′s more of the site was excavated and a lot was restored; I’m really dubious about restoring archaeological sites, even if it’s just putting back what was found originally. There are some horrible restorations to ancient ruins in the world. They don’t look right. Like what’s that thing at the base of Conimbriga meant to be?  Was it a forum which now looks more like a basketball court? On the other hand there’s Abu Simbel in Egypt, saved from the dammed waters of the Nile in the 60′s and astonishingly reassembled 65 metres uphill, surely as great a feat as building the colossal thing in the first place.

But I digress. More excavations were made at Citânia de Briteiros in the 1970′s and then more detailed studies were done during 2002-2006. The issue now is how to apply Francisco’s findings with what has since been learnt and with current scientific approaches.

Francisco, for example, was adamant that the Castro Culture, whose persons built and occupied Briteiros, was not of Celtic origin, but current theorists disagree. They believe that this extended tribe were possibly from the first wave of Celtic expansion in Europe around 800 BC and by settling in Portugal became more isolated from other Celts thus forming their own distinctive culture and traditions. It is thought that were about 100 oppida (hill forts) built in Northern Portugal and about 50 have been discovered.

holes for inserting vertical struts?

Each community was completely self-sufficient, not only in terms of food supply but of manufacturing as well. Each of the family compounds at Briteiros included a work shed or shop which might be a iron age forge, or a timber mill, a pottery, or a place where grains from wheat and rye crops were processed into flours. However there is also evidence of trading from as far away as Carthage on the African Mediterranean coast.

broken quern stones for milling cereals

What makes Briteiros distinctive from other hill forts is its size. The population is imagined to be somewhere between 600 and 1500, comprising of 150 families. Archaeological evidence such as jewellery and grooming products suggest there was a wealthy ruling elite. Remarkable too is the presence of a public space where a council may have met. It’s thought that Citânia de Briteiros was one of the longest living hill forts of the Castro Culture. Most oppida of the Castro Culture are thought to have been abandoned by 2nd century AD,  when had been occupied by the Romans and in the end used mostly for religious purposes. Briteiros,  however, was possibly populated up to the 5th Century, well after the Romans have gone and up to the arrival of German barbarians, who came without a war, a rape or a pillage and set us all an example by learning the local language. Despite not apparently being quite as bad as the Romans it looks like everyone ran away and Briteiros was abandoned.

(I have to note, under the subject What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us, that Briteiros has rather notable plumbing. While not every house had a water supply, there was certainly ample public water and exceptionally lovely drainage of the streets. And what about the two bathhouses? Steam rooms fired by underground furnaces, with cold water baths. Sounds pretty Roman to me.)

the large town hall in centre bg, with built in benches for the councillors to sit on

It can’t have been in bad condition when 500 or so years later it was populated again by a middle-aged crew. This bunch added a church and started burials – the Castros had been cremation-oriented and they kept the ashes under the family compound’s walls, or in urns in the front yard.

house with a front courtyard

That’s sort of the end of the Briteiros story. Now for question time. While on our tour, my fellow archaeologist/geologists and I (The One, Tiny Art Director) disagreed on several aspects on the site. How high were the walls originally? – Francisco has the reconstructed walls at about two metres high, and that seems wrong. There are Celtic dwellings with little 1 metre high walls (and less) and many round houses (a worldwide phenomenon from Mongolia to Central Africa, Australia & Scotland) have foot-high walls in stone with the upper part in clay or wattle & daub.

Why are most of the wall heights level? If the walls were two metres high then surely the existing wall heights would vary, now that they are less than a metre. I put forward that ruined sites are a excellent source of stone for builder hunter-gatherers or thieves as they are known today. Perhaps they were tidy, responsible thieves who took a course from each of the walls, leaving the next course completely intact and even. But then again this site was excavated, so therefore much of the walls must have been underground… maybe the site (underground) was levelled to the tops of most of the walls and any stones poking above-ground were rolled downhill/ pinched / offloaded off-site by the medieval JCB. Also, these houses are really tiny, barely enough room for two beds, really, these people could have done with some interior design help. I’m guessing proto-historic cooking took up heaps of space so was one shed of the family compound devoted to cooking and not to the grandparents or the horses?

If you know the answers

or have a Briteiros anecdote,

or can correct me on something

or have questions of your own

go ahead and put it in the comments.

I’d be much obliged.

Our questions may have been answered if we hadn’t stupidly forgotten to go to the Francisco Martins Sarmento Museum, where all the little trinkets, iron spear heads and engraved stone pieces are kept. And it probably would have saved me months of research afterwards. Oh well, sometimes the call of cake is just too strong, or maybe there were other pressing matters on our itinerary. Like Guimarães, for instance. Like the Pousada-Mosteiro de Santa Marinha da Costa and the Monte de Penha of Guimarães too. You’ll have to read the next posts for explanation of these glories.

Portugal is so full of lovely things to discover. It’s hard, but someone‘s got to do it.

One might be forgiven for mistaking the cafés on the roadside of the N111 at Tentúgal for ordinary truckie stops. There are about 5 or 6 altogether on a strip of about 500m. A few are plain ordinary looking cafés and the others have slightly fancier facades. All sell the famous Pastéis de Tentúgal but there are two that offer rather more than just that.

For a start, the first one, A Pousadinha, has 5 different flavours of empada. Wha? An empada is a little pie, and we of Australian-Kiwi-English ancestry love pies. Normally empadas come in chicken flavour only, so to find a variety is really something in itself. None of the flavours is beef, or beef and kidney, or beef and onion, or beef onion bacon and cheese, but let’s not quibble. Let’s be happy there are duck pies, and piglet pies, and seafood pies. Tentúgal discovery number one.

O Afonso

A bit further up the road towards Coimbra there’s a fancier sign with a large parking area for O Afonso, and this place is a revelation. Are we in Greenwich Village? Covent Garden? Double Bay? There is gourmet stuff everywhere: teas, cheeses, local wines, sweet exotica in nice bags with gold labels. The displays, photographic wallpaper and furniture are like, groovy and expensive. Lo and behold, interior design, right here, in the middle of nowhere.

And then, OMG look what’s on offer to eat. I myself am obliged to a Pastel de Tentúgal, but The One has to pace up and down the counter several times umming and ahhing as everything here seems new and original and extraordinarily delicious. Our yummies are served with a proper tea pot and a gorgeous coffee cup and saucer á la Caldas da Rainha.

And THEN the empresaria, Dona Margarida, invites me back-stage, to the kitchen. Ya. For the uninitiated, doces conventuais are pastries invented and created by nuns (and brothers) in convents (or monastries), often centuries-old recipes (the Tentúgals come originally from a closed Carmelite convent of the 16th Century). Frequently these recipes are kept secret (in this case because the convent is not open to outsiders, the nuns speak with no one) and they were given as welcoming gifts in honour of visiting bishopry or benefactors, as well as being stashed in the secret cavity of the nun’s bibles for midnight snackage.

The Tentúgals came to prominence in the 19th century, as the convent was running out of money they sold their goodies at the convent gates. They became popular with students at nearby Coimbra university, and I suppose, as the convent closed, the sweets then became commercialised. Pastéis de Tentúgal can be found around the country at the more serious fabrico proprio pastelarias, but for the real experience you have to come here.

The village of Tentúgal is a turn off the N111, and what a little treasure it is. It’s so cute that it made The One angry. “I want to live here” he said, tearfully. It’s the way little villages should be. What makes it so is that it’s really old, first referred to in print in 980 but then taken under the wing and developed in the 11th century by a dude named Dom Sesnando. A lot of old buildings have stayed. This Sesnando Davides, by the way, built castles at Coimbra, Lousã, Montemor-o-Velho, Penacova and Penela. He’s a guy that got things happening.

I was trying to find the 16th century Carmelite convent – which is tucked away in a little square and distinguishable by a checked hat on its roof. (If you do want to see inside the convent, hot tip, the Dona of Casa Armenio is good to call upon, or else start with Margarida at O Afonso, or even there’s an office opposite the Igreja Misericórdia. Actually it’s hard to find someone who will not want to oblige in Tentúgal). But en route to the convent there are a few very impressive little churches worth looking in at. The first is the Igreja da Misericórdia, built in 1583. The Casa da Misericórdia in Tentúgal, I was told by the local historian, was the second to be established after Lisbon. The Casa is one of the longest running charitable institutions in the world, establish by Queen Leonor in 1498 who recognised the need for someone to look after Lisbon’s orphans, widows, druggies and useless. And they also run Portugal’s national lottery and have a special place in our hearts for the hope they give to all of us.

The church is very simple and the reredos is carved from wood – the figures are quite unsophisticated but still hold some colour: each scene depicts a story from the bible for the illiterate masses.

Similarly simple and decorated in wood is the Capela Nossa Senhora dos Olivais. It is very cute indeed with naïve and humble statuary.

Now it’s time for dinner. Casa Armenio has something of a reputation for its roast duck and I’m not sure that anyone orders anything else when they come here. The One, who is something of a connoisseur of rissóis de leitão (piglet rissoles, mate) was almost in tears again because Casa Armenio’s are that good. This is a damn fine restaurant. It has atmosphere and conviviality, it’s not pretentious but it feels a bit special, the food is excellent and we had to have three desserts. I’m tempted to say it’s my second favourite restaurant in Portugal (for the first favourite, see Braga). Tentúgal discovery number five.

leite creme at casa armenio

But where’s the gorgeous guesthouse? Anyone?

with thanks to emma and loz for making it all possible

Many small communities had to have been completely self sufficient in this region, no doubt many across the whole country, but these villages are so much more isolated, and without any obvious advantages (other than the security brought by their height and their spectacular beauty) I can’t help speculate that their isolation served another purpose; as hideaways. I can’t find any evidence of this idea but I think about Jews and the Inquisition, or the more recent history of anyone avoiding Salazar or Franco and laying low in the hills of Central Portugal. Indeed, even today it would be an excellent place to abscond to.

Ghost towns quite blatantly have a life after death, just as the ruins of great civilisations inspire awe, even the simplest little abandoned village breathes a soft symphony of history and life. I think because they solicit more questions than they divulge secrets. Only the stones remain, undisturbed and slowly ageing, alone in the quiet forest.

It reminded me of Angkor, Cambodia, where the smaller, less famous temples, like Ta Prohm are overwhelmed by the growing forest, as though the buildings are being assimilated by the trees to become one organism.

The rural desertification of Portugal, generally characterised by young people leaving the countryside in search of work, is intensified here, as living conditions in these remote villages still seem somewhat medieval. The mountain villages that have already been restored and renovated by Portuguese and foreigners, have the luxury of telephones and electricity – but you can see in the untouched houses that remain in the same villages that without insulation summer and winter wouldn’t be too comfortable. The steep terrain would have meant herding goats and other livestock & farming the land very serious work. The houses are generally tiny and built deep into the ground, abutting other houses. Someone might argue that being on top of one another was an insulation of a kind – but all I see is damp and no privacy. It’s gorgeous and rustic, but the truth is there are easier places to live.

But these two villages Silveira de Baixo and Silveira da Cima actually seem grander and larger than the still-occupied and renovated villages of the Aldeias Do Xisto group. Silveira do Baixo has the ruins of a chapel, and the remaining dwellings are large and spread out over a wide area, rather than terraced. Certainly the forest seems to have re-claimed most of the terrain, and any agricultural land is difficult to make out, but these houses look as though they would have had gardens, and were spaced by smaller stone out houses for animals and storage.

So why were these abandoned while the other villages live on?  In Ireland in the latter half of the 19th century, famine was a major precursor to whole villages packing up and shipping out. Catastrophe can end a village’s life. Was the water supply contaminated, or reduced due to drought? Could the village been invaded by marauding Danes who slaughtered, ravaged and burnt the village to the ground like in the Swedish town Sjöstad, Närke in 1260. The same happened in the French village Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, when occupying Germans massacred the village’s population. The entire area around Chernobyl is home to several villages disbanded due to contamination. Dam building, the invasion of fat highways or other reclamation of land by the state are other reasons.

However, it’s not too much of a mystery why, sadly, these villages are abandoned. Families getting older with no kids who want to stay, a gradual erosion of trading connections as better roads were put in other places and job opportunities arose elsewhere. I’d say the introduction of electricity and the exclusion of access to it for some of these villages may have sounded the death nell for them. As the larger towns grew and access to better health care became available people moved to where they could access it. The chance to immigrate, particularly revelant to Portugal and Spain during the 60′s and 70′s, following other family members to better opportunities. It’s all economic.

But times continue to change, and the fortunes of these villages might be reversed. The Aldeias do Xisto program has been very successful in renewing interest in these remote villages as a valuable cultural asset. Foreigners continue to seek out seclusion and peace where they can hope to live more simply, sustainably and healthily. Once on a visit to a profoundly expensive English lawyer I was brushed aside to make way for clients who were buying an entire abandoned village.  It can be done, and eco-tourism is the future.

But for now, we are happy to stumble over the stones of our own secret ancient cities, even if they are only 50 years forgotten. What more is there than intrigue and imagination, and the misty breath of village ghosts?