From Northeast To Northwest: The Douro and The Duero
The Stately Home

«Vila Real is not a fortunate place. The traveller is bound to offer belter explanations if he is not to arouse the hostility of the natives, so unfairly discredited by his words. But honestly, what more can one say about a place which has to the east Mateus with its manor house of obvious beauty; and to the west Marão; to the south the valley of Corgo, and parallel to it, a valley which flows not with water but with wines? A traveller who fetches up here is bound to be distracted by pondering on all that surrounds him. But there's a further reason for this traveller's responsiveness to the call of the North: "Come! Come!" The call is so imperative that, on awakening, he suddenly becomes agitated and, responding to a deep sense of urgency, in two bounds reaches the staircase. No gold mine or clandestine assignation awaits him, but the morning is certainly glorious, with huge, high, white clouds, and a sun gone crazy.

A few kilometres on from Vila Real lies Vilarinho de Samardâ. You must pardon the traveller his weaknesses: coming from so far away and finding so close at hand illustrious sights such as the ancient palace flanked by two equally fine valleys; and the chance of voraciously devouring one poor village after another for the sole reason that Camilo Castelo Branco walked and lived there. Some of us go to Mecca; others to Jerusalem; many to Fatima; the traveller makes his pilgrimage to Samardã. That was the route followed by the young madcap, whether on horseback or in a phaeton. In his own words, it was in Vilarinho he passed "the earliest and only happy years of my youth", and in Samardã he noted the case of a wolf who survived five bullets and still finished dining on the second half of a sheep. Such episodes appear in life and in literature, and are yet another more than sufficient reason for the traveller to go in search of Vilarinho's stately home, questioning two women washing clothes in a watertank, who tell him to keep going further on and on. Castelo Branco's epitaph still stands over the threshold to the front door, but the house is now privately owned, and there's no wait for someone to attend to him. (…)

(…)

The traveller returns to Vila Real, and this time he complies with the rituals. The first has to be Mateus, the palace awarded to the eldest son. Before going inside, you should go through its gardens, taking your time. However numerous and valuable the treasures inside, you'd be guilty of the sin of pride to disdain those without: trees which from all the colours of the rainbow eschew only blue, leaving it to the skies; they sport every shade of green, yellow, red, brown, with even a nibble of violet at the edges. These are the arts of autumn, its freshness lies underfoot, it's a wonderful sight for weary eyes, with lakes to reflect and multiply the pleasure. The traveller thought he must have fallen into a kaleidoscope and become a traveller in Wonderland.

He becomes himself again when confronted by the palace. It's a source of beauty which, thanks to its architect Nasoni, remains intact even when abused by being tastelessly labelled onto umpteen wine bottles. Such vulgarity is indescribable, and if it's true the traveller has become sensitised to the simplicities of Romanesque architecture, he still remains capable of resisting wilful obstinacies. This was why he didn't resent its courtly elegance or the stroke of genius in designing a pinnacle flush with the upper level, at first glance wholly out of proportion. The patio looks bashful, an early indication of an inner intimacy. Its large granite slabs give out echoes, and the traveller re-experiences the sense of mystery at other people's houses. There in the centre is what he is waiting for: its painting, furniture, statues, engraving all give it the precise atmosphere of a secular sacristy struggling with the heavy erudition of a library. Here lie the plates to the original engravings by Gérard and Fragonard for The Lusiads, while for those given to patriotic raptures, there are original letters signed by Talleyrand, Metternich, Wellington, even Alexander, Czar of Russia - all grateful for the gift of a book in a foreign language they couldn't read. With the greatest respect, the traveller decides that what Mateus has best to offer is still Nicolau Nasoni.

(…)

You can see how easily the traveller lets himself be swayed by his memories of a childhood spent in other lands and the distractions afforded by Lobrigos' heights: he is once again overwhelmed by the sight of the vineyards, unarguably the eighth wonder of the world. He passes by Santa Marta de Penaguião, Cumeeira, Parada de Cunhos where, turning his back on the River Corgo, he comes face to face with the Marão. This may sound like the dry recital of an itinerary but is, on the contrary, a major step in the traveller's life. Anyone can cross the Serra Marão, but when you learn that Marão means the Great House, things fall into place, and the traveller realises he's not only crossing a heath, but is about to enter a house.

What would any visitor do on entering? Take off his hat, if he wears one, lower his head if it goes uncovered, in other words demonstrate the requisite signs of respect. This traveller turns into a visitor and enters, his soul as conveniently cleansed as his shoes, once wiped on the doormat. Marão is not the steepest summit, the most vertiginous rockface, or a challenge to Alpine climbers. We've already established it's a house, and houses are there for humans to inhabit. Now the world and its brothers can climb them, but can he really do so? Mountains roll on beyond mountains, they obscure the horizon, or they disrupt it with an ever-bigger mountain; they are rounded, enormous animal-backs resting on the ground, and forever immobilised. Down in the deep valleys the sound of water can be heard, while down the slopes on either side tumble torrents that pursue the road looking out a way onto every lower level, dropping step by step, falling from a height or gently joining the main current, one tributary into the next, waters which can as well flow into the Corgo as remain behind with the Douro, or run as far south as the Tâmega, which now awaits the traveller.

(…) Crossing the lands of Marão, from Vila Real to Amarante, should be made a civic obligation equivalent to paying taxes or registering the birth of children. Rooted in the Douro, the Marão is the spreading branch of a great stone trunk which reaches to Alto Minho and enters into Galicia; it gathers strength in Falperra then opens out in mountain after mountain, via Barroso and Larouco, Cabreira and Gerês, on to Peneda,
and into the upper reaches of Lindoso and Castro Laboreiro.

The Tame Wolf’s Cave
(…)

(…) A wolf I stalled these rooms for this is not the home of a solitary peasant. The traveller has need to cover and disguise his emotional eyes, as they would have been described by a non-existent onlooker, though he'd understand it better if he remembered that Marão is the great house, and to enter it is to climb the highest mountain of the sierra, with all the wind in your face, gazing down upon deep, dark valleys. Teixeira de Pascoaes is not numbered among the traveller's favourite poets, but he's moved by the human scale of his home, this minimally comfortable bed worthy of St Francis of Assisi, this rusticity belonging best to a hermit, the biscuit tin to still the hunger in the dead hours of the night, the rough table for his verses. We all leave to the world what we create in the world. Teixeira de Pascoaes deserved to bear with him this other creation of his own making: the house in which he lived.

(…)

(…) The traveller advances across the scrub, on course to find mines of gold, or a magic fountain, and just when he's beginning to ejaculate curses and imprecations (just as well he does so amid this disturbing scenery), he sees the dolmen before him, the first one, half-buried, its round hat planted on its vertical stones, of which only the tips can be seen. It looks like an abandoned fortress. The traveller takes a turn around it and finds its entry-point, within it the chamber, spacious and far higher than it looked from the outside, so much so that the traveller has no need to stoop for there are no lowered corners. Its silence limitless. Beneath its stones the traveller retires from the world. He slips back into a five-thousand-year-old history, when men used the strength of their arms to raise this enormously heavy slab of stone, as perfectly planed as a vaulted dome, what would you say if they could tell of the dead buried there beneath? The traveller sits down on the sandy floor, holding a tender sprig sprung beside the flagstone between his fingers, and drops his head to listen to his own heartbeat.»