Beira Day 6 - As Aldeias do Castelo

Today's tour encompasses three small castle towns – aldeias. The município of Sabugal is promoting five castle towns as a tourist route: Alfaiates, Sabugal, Sortelha, Vila do Touro, and Vila Maior. We add Castelo Mendo to the list, for its attractive YouTubes online, but also for this paragraph from Saramago:

Seen from afar it is a fortress, a place surrounded by walls, with two towers at its main entrance. From close up, it is all that, but also there is a great neglect, the melancholy of a dead city. Town, city, village. It is not easy to classify somewhere that is all these things at once. The traveller took a rapid look round. He went to the old court-building, which is being restored and where only the thick porch columns are worthy of note. He went into the church and came out again, saw the tall pillory, and on this occasion did not feel like talking to anyone. There were some old people seated in their doorways, but they gave off such an air of sadness that the traveller felt uneasy. He left, noting the wild boar on the coat of arms guarding the main gate in the walls, and continued on his way. (José Saramago, “Journey to Portugal,” 1990; trans Hopkinson-Caistor, 2000)

Saramago's "Journey" is a useful, if wordy, travel guide, should you want to go deep on Portugal; it has helped guide several of of our trips. Having now called Alfaiates home for five days, seen how the locals live, and enjoyed the history and the architecture – we want to either confirm or deny this well-known curmudgeon's melancholy. So today, we are on a mission.

Our first stop is Vila do Touro (pop. 183 in 2011), whose castelo remains unfinished. The village dates to the early thirteenth century, by charter to the Templars. The incomplete fortifications are due to an old local land dispute, so that's very Portuguese.

We park near the Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Assunção, in the Largo do Reduto. The parking lines are are not painted, but there are oil stains. Anyway, it's a very small largo, and there are no other places to park. Only the change in the direction of the cobbles suggests 'road' versus 'not road'. The area merges with the Largo do Pelourinho, and contains everything you need to make an aldeia: igreja, torre sineira, fonte, jardim, e pelourinho. There is also an octagonal bandstand and a bus stop shelter. But like the other villages on this trip, it's very charming and as clean as can be.

The fountain holds a small tile portrait of Senhora do Mercado, with the motto, "rogai por nos." We look for hints of a castle on the top of a nearby hill, but can only make out a small capela, which seems beyond-walking distance. As if to compete with Monsanto, the tourist map provided by the Câmara Município shows a Casa do Barroco (boulder house) just south of the castelo. We find it under renovation, in need of quite a lot of attention.

 

 

 

Next on the map is the Capela da Nossa Senhora do Mercado ("rogai por nos"), a recently refreshed, plain chapel with a three-post 'front' portico facing away from town, but with fantastic views of the rocky farmland below.

We are able to press our iPhones to the window glass and see there is quite an elaborate gilt wood frame at the altar, a plastic-looking 'Our Lady', and a smaller statue of Santo António to the right. The floor seems to be raw stone (a small boulder also protrudes from the exterior rear wall). There are a couple of small 'stretchers' which, we assume, are used to parade the figures into the village, but the chapel appears otherwise empty.

On the other side of the capela, we glimpse the Gothic porta de entrada of the castelo, a wonderfully romantic ruin, like a folly in a garden.

 

 

 

Standing at the approach to the porta, we are startled by an old woman working in the neighboring flower garden, "bom dia, bom dia!" Loud and friendly, and saying everything twice, she told us that the castle is 'very high, very high', and that the view is 'very beautiful, very beautiful'.

Through the porta, there is a steel stair and elevated walk – this looks fairly new, and does not register on Google Maps. The steel ends near an information sign, explaining details of the fortress. Stepping over the ruined walls, the steel dissolves into a trail of pink flowers, shining in the morning sun, and leading us to the top. The old woman is correct, the castle is high and the views are beautiful.

 

 

 

The next stop, Castelo Mendo (pop. 87 in 2011), is as far north as we go on this entire trip, though all these aldeias are less than about twenty miles apart. Castelo Mendo is in the município of Almeida, but keeps us in the Côa valley. It is indeed protected by two square towers, along with a pair of stone creatures (zoomórfos) and other pieces. There is a cemetery, an impressive number of stone crosses along the road, a small chapel, and a shady parking plaza. Far from a 'dead city', there is a construction crew inside, the sounds of a city being rejuvenated, and a man pacing near the gate barking instructions into his cell phone.

The construction workers are laying wide granite pavers down the center of the cobblestone street, the Rua da Direita. From the gate, we immediately find a small water source and the Igreja de  São Vicente. There is also a small sacristy or chapter house on one side, with cute, center-column windows, and a tight stair up to the bell.

We follow the stone pavers to a tractor in front of the Igreja Matriz de São Pedro. The pavers disappear in a ditch of sand, then reappear, turning the corner from the Largo da Igreja to the Largo da Praça, and behind the igreja to the Largo do Chafariz. There's a largo for everything, but it really all feels like one flowing space where we have the kit of parts: igreja, torre sineira, chafariz, e pelourinho. In any case, the workers happily clear the base of the pelourinho, where they are sharing an early lunch, and let us take pictures. We let them know that the stone walkway looks muito bom.

 

 

 

 

 

Just on from the chafariz are the castle walls, only a couple of meters high. All that remains of the broad gate (Porta de Dom Sancho) are the stone hinges and timber pockets for the barricade braces, and hints of the archway. Standing on the wall, we get a good view over this small aldeia. The new granite pavers continue right through the passage.

These outer defenses for the Castelo de Castelo Mendo date from the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but there are houses built onto, along, and inside the walls. The pavers stop at a secondary wall and the inner ward, where we turn and see the ruins of the Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo.

 

 

 

We enter the ward from the north; there is a shadowy grotto to the southwest, where there is another guard station or perhaps another gate. To the southeast is is a thicker inner wall, with an arched porta to the cidadela and the ruins of the Torre de Menagem. In the center stands an over-sized grave marker (urna) for a nobleman who was killed by his own soldiers in the nineteenth century:

Aqui jaz Miguel Augusto Mendonça Corte Real, fidalgo da Casa Real e Comendador ds ordens de S. Bento de Aviz e de Nossa Sr.ª da Conceição […]
[Here lies Miguel Augusto Mendonça Corte Real, nobleman of the Royal House and Commander of the (Military) Orders of St Benedict of Aviz and Our Lady of the Conception …]

 

 

 

Returning to take a closer look at the ruined igreja, we begin to worry, like Saramago, about the details and features exposed to the elements. But the ruin is fascinating: a Romanesque shell, with a Gothic central passage, a heavy stone altar, an intact mudéjar timber ceiling over the chapel, and a delightful stone pulpit base.

 

 

 

 

We depart Castelo Mendo thinking that there is a melancholy, but it's a romantic regret. It is not about doom, but about hope. After nearly a thousand years, the heritage is still here. If there was "great neglect" in the past, some of it is being repaired – by, for example, the friendly workers setting the pavers. We share a measure of hope that future tourists using the newly paved walkways will help fund more repairs. And the heritage will endure.

 

At Vilar Maior (pop. 120 in 2011), my parking strategy breaks down. On the maps satellite view, there is a small lot right up near the castle. But after crossing the 'medieval' bridge, we immediately hit the squeeze of the old roads. So we reverse down to the old bridge, and park along the street – again, the cobbles change directions so it looks 'okay'.

Defeated, we re-enter the town walls, and follow now-familiar roads to the Igreja Matriz de São Pedro, which is well-kept, with Corinthian column capitals and lots of 'swirly' stone touches. Across the street is a small museu; the sign says it will re-open at three o'clock (it does not).

Further up the hill are the ruins of the Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo and a very nice cemetery. On the other side of the cemetery stands the much-reviled parking lot, empty.

 

 

 

The Castelo de Vilar Maior actually dates from the eleventh century, when the region was under the control of León, whose armies drove out the Moors. The fortress shifted from Leonese to Portuguese hands several times, until the signing of the Tratado do Alcanizes in 1297.

The município maintains a slightly elevated, perforated, serpentine walkway and a grove of olive trees, between the parking area and the imposing Torre de Menagem. The walkway takes us right to the porta, which is nearly hidden beside the torre. Perhaps the walkway is to prevent visitors' aimless 'wandering-around' looking for the door.

 

Inside the walls, the ward includes a ruined stone building, with squarish rooms, and a cisterna, which is roped off. Near the cisterna is the Porta Falsa, set at the base of some stairs. The tall, near-circular walls come to a point at the northwest side opposite the torre. There is a large boulder toward that end of the ward.

 

 

 

The cantilevered steps are very spare, and we have to use the gaps in the masonry joints to help pull us up – the lichen and dried moss make this work uncomfortable. The walls are extremely uneven and difficult to navigate. The views are, as always, wonderful.

Despite its scale, the Torre de Menagem is vacant, no floors or roof, but the stonework looks to be totally sound. The torre also has a certain warm cast to the stone, without really being a particularly different color.

Returning to the village, we search for the pelourinho, which is the only 'kit-part' we have missed – this village has no central largo. Frustrated, we decide to leave with an open checkbox, but then discover the pelourinho at an intersection, outside the walls near the old bridge. We leave Vilar Maior thinking there is some work to be done here, as in all the villages. The serpentine walkway, is an unusual addition. We might have preferred handrails, for example. But this is not a "dead city", it is full of stories, beauty, melancholy – and hope. Saramago would have plenty to fill a page or two.