From Mondego to Sado, stopping all the while
They Say It's a Good Thing

«(...)The traveller is leaving Lisbon by the bridge over the Tagus. He is heading south. He sees the tall columns, the giant arches of the Aqueduto das Águas Livres over the River Alcântara, and reflects on how long and desperate the thirsts in Lisbon must have been. Their need for water was assuaged by Claudio Gorgel do Amaral, the administrator of the city who started the project, and the architects Manuel da Maia and Custódio José Vieira. Probably to satisfy Dom João V's Italianate taste, the first person in charge, although only for a short time, was António Canevari. But those who really built the aqueduct and paid for it with their own money were the people of Lisbon. (...)

Chimneys and Orange Groves

Perhaps because he is crossing a river, the traveller remembers when he crossed the River Douro, and gave his sermon to the fishes, a long time earlier at the start of this journey. It was then that he came across the Infant Jesus of Cartolinha, a lovable child who went into battle on the side of the people of Miranda and, if not winning the fight single-handed, at least helped them a lot. Now high above him stands the Cristo Rei, tall and majestic as befits a king, but lacking in beauty. The traveller reflects on how many regions and people he has seen, is amazed at the distance he has covered, and the distance too between the child of Miranda and the Christ of Pragal.

Everything is big in this region. The city is big and beautiful, the pillars supporting the deck of the bridge are big as well, so are the cables between them. And so are the chimneys that fill this narrow shore between Almada and Alcochete, with their cascading plumes of white, yellow, ash-coloured or black smoke. The wind sweeps them away, and the long swirls of cloud cover the fields to the south and west. This is a region of factories and shipyards: Alfeite, Seixal, Barreiro, Moita, Montijo, a turbulent place where metal whines, roars, and thumps, where gases and vapours hiss, where endless pipes direct the flow of fuels. Everything is bigger than man. Nothing is as big as him.

The traveller promises himself that if he lives a long life, he'll come back here and investigate just what kind of region this is, and what the people living here are like. This time, he is only passing through. His first stop is at Palmela, a high village that produces a wine so good that two sips of it transform anyone. The traveller does not always go inside castles, but on this occasion he makes an exception. From the top of the moat tower the eyes seem to travel round the world, and once they've done so, come back to the same spot. Somewhere down in the village there's a market going on. A Woman is using a powerful loudspeaker to sell her wares: bed linen and pots and pans. She seems to be a clever saleswoman. Her voice resounds across the landscape, and she sounds so jolly that the traveller is not annoyed at the noise.

(...)

In Palmela there are two sights worth seeing: the parish church with its eighteenth-century tiles depicting the life of St Peter, and the fifteenth-century Convento de Santiago, a solid construction that looks more like another tower within the fortress.

To mention Vila Fresca de Azeitão is to speak of the Quinta das Torres and the Quinta da Bacalhoa. Also the palace of the Dukes of Aveiro, but the traveller did not go there. Quinta das Torres is a charming spot, with beautiful trees reflected in the lake. In the middle of it is a temple in Italian Renaissance style, a romantic building whose only purpose seems to be to please the eyes. In a terrace that offers a magnificent panorama, there are two fine majolica panels from the sixteenth century, which show the Sack of Troy and the Death of Dido, both from the Aeneid. This Quinta das Torres conserves a slow, bucolic atmosphere, so different from that of today that the traveller feels he has made a journey in time and must be standing there in seventeenth-century costume.

The Quinta da Bacalhoa does not give the same impression, despite being even older, perhaps because the ravages of time are very obvious, and made even worse here because of both a lack of care and deliberate destruction. What remains is very beautiful, and very serene. The so-called “houses of pleasure”, open on the lake side and decorated with tiles that are beautiful in spite of being damaged, have a secret charm all of their own. Their bareness makes them feel like one of the most inhabited places the traveller has been in. And the doors are placed in such a way as to create a real mystery, as if someone were about to appear at any moment. Seen from the main road, these pavilions are like the initial, dangerous part of a labyrinth: that is the effect the open doors convey, as if waiting for someone to enter to slam shut behind them. A tile panel inside tells the story of Susannah and the Elders. Susannah is about to bathe; the old men can't get used to the fact that they're old. It's a true reflection of life: some doors open, others close.

But not everything is so complicated. This man accompanying the traveller (...).

Between here and the Cabo Espichel there are lots of vineyards and almost as many orange groves. The traveller can remember a time when to say “an orange from Setúbal” was to talk of the quintessential orange. It might be a trick of memory, but for him the term always conjures up unforgettable sensations of taste. In order not to be disappointed, he decides not to eat an orange. Anyway, it is not the orange season.

The traveller confesses that the Santuário da Senhora do Cabo goes straight to his heart. The two long blocks of the guests' quarters, the simple arcades, all this rustic, rural simplicity moves him far more than the great pilgrim industry that exists elsewhere in Portugal. But few people come here nowadays. Either the Senhora do Cabo does not perform miracles any more, or the pilgrims have been diverted to more lucrative spots. So the glories of the world fade away - or to say it in Latin, which always gives the words more weight: sic transit gloria mundi: in the eighteenth century, a vast horde of pilgrims used to come here, and now it's as you see it, a deserted esplanade, no-one sheltering in the shade of the arches. Nevertheless, it is worth making the pilgrimage here simply for its beauty. And inside the church there are other reasons: marble from the Arrábida, paintings, sculptures, and fine carvings.

The valley down from Santana to Sesimbra offers glimpses of the sea. It opens out to the green waves and the blue sky, but conceals the old town in the folds of the hill that the castle stands upon. The traveller rounds the final bend and finds himself in the middle of Sesimbra. However often he comes back here, he always has this feeling of discovery, of a fresh encounter.

Fish stews can be eaten all along this coast, from north to south. But in Sesimbra - who knows why? - they taste different, perhaps because the traveller is eating one out in the sun, and the white wine from Palmela is just cold enough to offer all the taste and aroma that wine at room temperature can have, while at the same time harmonising with all the qualities that come from the coolness of the bottle. Probably because he had such a good lunch, the traveller did not visit the parish church as he should have, and as a punishment discovered that the Misericordia church, with the panel of its patron saint painted by Gregório Lopes, was shut. Some other time. Another debt to pay.

(...)

Portinho is like a fingernail of sand, a sliver of crescent moon sent down upon us. The traveller, who is short of time, would be silly to resist temptation. He slips into the water and floats on his back in the gentle to and fro of the waves, dialoguing with the tall cliffs that from where he is look as though they are toppling over into the sea. Afterwards he visits the Convento Novo, and feels sorry for the statue of Mary Magdalene kept behind railings there: not only has she renounced the world, but she has had to give up the Arrábida hills.

To the traveller, Setúbal seems like Babylon, the greatest city in the world. And now that it is surrounded by motorways and newly built suburbs, he is not sure in which direction he is heading, and when he decides to head straight on towards the river, he eventually discovers he is further away from it than when he started out. It is not an easy city to feel affection for.

This was where Bocage began his short life. He is on the top of a column outside the church of St Julian, and must be wondering why they put him up there all on his own, when he was such a Bohemian, a man who loved to improvise verses in taverns, who made love extravagantly in rented beds, a man who quarreled and drank wine. His case is different from that of the plane tree: the one who survived did a disservice to the one who died. Manuel María deserved a passionate gesture, not this stiff romantic vision of some senator going to the forum to read his verses of adulation. The traveller would like to learn one day that the people of Setúbal decided to erect a statue to their poet that partook less of stone, even if it cannot be of flesh and blood.

The church of Jesus and its adjacent monastery are said to be the most beautiful monuments in the city. Perhaps this is because the outside promises what the inside cannot deliver: its plain, harmonious façade gives way to the overdone twisted columns inside, and the stone ribs of the roof. This is not the first time the traveller has seen this kind of column, and he has always passively enjoyed, and even applauded, them. His doubt here must have been as a result of the shock they caused him. So much so that, after leaving the church, he turned round to see if they shocked him quite so much. They did. The traveller feels there was something unresolved in the balance between the church's height and its breadth. Leave him to puzzle it out.

There are excellent Levantine and Moorish tiles round the high altar and in the crypt, built for the son of the founder, Justa Rodrigues, nurse of Dom Manuel I. On the walls of the church, eighteen panels depict the life of the Virgin, and this again is the theme of more panels in Setúbal's museum, which are thought to be by Jorge Afonso, with the help of Cristóvão de Figueiredo and Gregório Lopes. But perhaps the most valuable exhibit in the museum is the series by Lopes on the life of St Francis, in particular the Aparição de Um Anjo de Santa Clara, Santa Ines e Santa Coleta. All these panels, and that of Christ's Passion, provide an invaluable guide to our understanding of Portuguese painting in the sixteenth century.

(...)

The traveller would like to follow the banks of the River Sado. But it forms an irregular-shaped estuary, and its waters extend inland, creating islands in midstream. If it were a little bolder, the Sado would be another Volga. So the traveller has to make a long diversion as far as Águas de Moura, before he can head directly south once more. Now he is in the Alentejo region. But the traveller decides that Alcácer do Sul should mark the boundary of the journey that has brought him here from the Mondego. Every traveller has the right to invent his own geographies. If he didn't, he would be no more than a traveler’s apprentice, still bound by what his teacher taught him.

Alcácer do Sal is situated at the point where the river is starting to gain strength to open wide its arms and embrace the lowlying lands to the south of the railway line at Praias Sado, Mourisca, Algeruz and Águas de Moura. Here it is still a provincial river, but it already has Atlantic ambitions. It is hard to imagine the force it gains just a few leagues further downstream. It's like the River Tagus as it leaves Alhandra. Rivers, like people, only know why they were born when they are close to their end.»