Letter from Espargal: 14 of 2007

This letter begins at the Quinta dos Avós (Quinta of the Grandparents) on the outskirts of the town of Campo Maior (Larger Field) in the northern Alentejo. The Quinta is an old country house, the equivalent of an English manor, that we found through the local tourist office. We have exchanged a few words each evening with the gentleman in charge. His wife has been in Lisbon for the birth of their granddaughter.

From Rosa, the maid, we gather that the property was inherited in poor condition from the owners’ grandparents. It’s comfortable in the way that old houses are when they come with modern electrics and ample hot water. The rooms are spacious and the bathrooms en suite. All that troubles us is the poor dog that spends loveless days guarding access to the property. (We were delighted on the Saturday of our departure to find the dog running around while its master looked on.) The house is within walking distance of Campo Maior if one is willing to brave the traffic on the main road into town.

We arrived here after spending two days at an establishment close to Castelo de Vide, a town further north, where Jones was content and I was not. On the basis of an internet search we had booked ourselves into a rondawel on a 25 hectare guest farm (mixed camping, caravanning and housed accommodation). Its Dutch owners are trying to do much the same sort of thing that we used to do at the Quinta.

As so often, it was a case of expectations met or not. I didn’t expect to have to walk 50 metres to a bathroom or 150 to the car-park, especially down narrow stony paths in the wet. Nor to have to squint at my book at night under 12-amp lights until the solar-powered battery supplying our unit ran flat and plunged the place into darkness. My richest curses were reserved for a top-loading wood-burning stove that seemed designed to fill the room with smoke before extinguishing itself, at least until we got ourselves a supply of fire-lighters (after which it worked like a dream).

If she were writing this letter, Jones would be raving over the magnificent mountain landscape, the birds, the flowers and the walks, and rightfully so. I was annoyed at myself in such a marvellous setting for not being able to suppress my irritations, the more so for being much better off in the showers than nearby happy campers. But in spite of this, my restlessness grew. So when our third day dawned wet under brooding skies, we called it quits, made our apologies to our hosts and departed.


Before our exit we got in some impressive walks. The best of these took us 90 minutes along a narrow centuries-old stone-paved road that wound up the hill overlooking the farm and snaked down to Castelo de Vide on the far side. The town, as its name implies, (like most in this region) is overshadowed by its ancient castle.

Returning to Campo Maior - the outer fortifications of the castle here have been turned into informal living quarters. Where stone is missing, corrugated iron sheets fill the gaps. During a walking tour of the town we made our way past the families that live in these spaces, to reach the castle gate; thence up steep steps to the battlements and the towers. Although its walls are in reasonable shape the castle itself, sadly, now offers sanctuary only to acres of weeds and litter.

The string of fortifications along the border reminds visitors that this is a region where armies have clashed from time immemorial. Its history predates the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians who set foot here. Long before their arrival the region was populated by people who left it studded with hundreds of stone monuments, menirs (pillars) and antas (tombs). These still stand, many of them, mute and mysterious. One menir we visited was over 5 metres tall and, according to a plaque, weighed 18 tons. There are no records to show who these people were, where they came from or where they went.

We spent a day at Elvas, the most impressive of the fortified towns in the area. The extensive old town, occupying a hill, is entirely contained within vast fortified walls, surmounted by the customary castle and keep.
A tall aqueduct – still in good condition – supplied water to the town. The tourist route takes one along narrow lanes where front doors still open on to streets barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. The mosques of the old Arab quarter were long ago converted into churches.

In a corner of the town we came across the “English Cemetery” and a group of Brits who have dedicated themselves to looking after it. It provides a resting place for some of the soldiers who fell in the Peninsula wars against Napoleon. In two battles in the area, some 11,000 British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese troops perished. No idea how many French. We lunched in a small restaurant where friendly-fierce disputes raged over the merits of Lisbon’s two top football teams; a pity that Napoleon didn’t concern himself with football rather than conquering the world.

Another day we took ourselves to the Spanish town of Olivenza just across the border.
A handsome new bridge crosses the Guadiana river frontier close to the remnants of the old stone bridge. We drove up the river bank looking for a spot to picnic but found it hard to escape the litter that previous visitors had strewn around the place. In one town we were accosted by a slovenly woman who, after dropping a paper wrapper on the pavement in front of us, had stuffed some food into her mouth. When she thrust out a hand for money, she got a double admonition not to litter.

Olivenza itself has an excellent museum and some striking old churches to recommend it. Most of the Portuguese who go there, however, do so to fill their petrol tanks at much lower Spanish prices.

Another visit was to the town of Vila Vicosa in the Portuguese marble-quarrying district. Mountains of marble rubble rise on the approaches. The town’s streets are curbed with marble, its sidewalks paved with marble chips and its public benches made of solid marble. We arrived just in time to join a tour of the great palace (newly restored) of the Braganza family, as rich in furniture and furnishings as any in Europe.

From time to time we exchanged text messages with our house sitters, who reported that all was well if occasionally very wet. They arrived last Sunday morning to a slightly complicated canine situation. With our neighbour, Idalecio’s dog, in season, and serious contenders for her favour prowling the fence, we found it necessary to keep our lot inside, especially little Prickles. He was all for tearing visiting Alsatians limb from limb. Although Idalecio has a good fence around his property we discovered his gate smashed open - and feared the worst for little Serpa, who normally sleeps outside. Happily, for once, she was safely indoors.

We returned home from the Alentejo via the newly completed Alqueva Dam - the biggest artificial stretch of water in Europe, some 250 sq kms of it. From the viewer platforms on the dam wall we peered down the 100 metre fall to the Guadiana river below. Following placards advertising boat trips on the dam, we found a pier with half a dozen boats tied up awaiting visitors but sign of life, other than two distant ostriches (on an ostrich farm) across the water, there was none.

So we repaired instead to the brand-new tourist centre to learn more about the dam and its construction. The tourist staff happily put on two brief films for us to watch. Both of these were really just public relations blurbs to say what good news the dam would prove for all concerned and we emerged little the wiser. We had thought to find ourselves a dream hotel overlooking the water at which to spend our final night. Finding nothing of the sort we came home in time to walk the dogs and to enjoy a barbecue with our house sitters.