We wandered north from Vila Real and although not travelling far as the crow flies, due to the mountainous landscape and deliberately taking the most scenic route, it did feel like a trek to our next stop at Els and Herman’s beautiful campsite at Quinta Valbom (www.quintavalbom.nl) which is a little east of Guimarães.
Travelling through these rural places is when you really understand what’s happened in Portugal over the past thirty years or so. There has been a huge migration away from the countryside and many houses and farms are empty. Some are for sale with boards outside but many more are derelict. It’s even more strange to see that new builds are preferred to restoration or renovation with the the pan-european style of cheap block walls and render being preferred to a good bit of insulation behind some thick granite stone.
The people that remain are half a generation or more older than I am and they are all cultivating their land - mainly vegetables it seems. They grow far more than they could eat so this must be for some degree of reward - although where their market is I don’t know. Everything seems to be done by hand or with small implements and it must be a hard way to earn a living. I’m not sure at all that they see this way of life through the same slightly rosy specs that I do.
Quinta Valbon is an example of what we have seen at many campsites. This was a farm, making wine (rather than a vineyard) which had been left to the weeds and brambles for ten years before being bought by the Dutch couple who now own it. They emigrated about nine or ten years ago, just themselves and were searching for a suitable spot for a campsite.
What they now have is a beautifully crafted terraced campsite, that is on a steep hillside looking over and down into a large valley with distant views to the mountains further south. This was a restoration done on a commercial scale, in that they completed the works on the farmhouse in less than a year. All the terraces were cleared and are down to grass, but the Adega (wine press building) is now a bar and lower down they have dug a large swimming pool and it’s all very well maintained.
For travellers in a Land Rover, access up the 20% hill wasn’t a problem, nor was getting up the steeper(?) site road. However although they encourage caravans as well as tents, the drivers are requested to to call ahead and they are decoupled so that Herman can pull them the final few kms with his Land Cruiser. I’m not sure I would chose this site unless I’d already been and was aware that this is worth doing - but just in case you are reading and wondering - yes it really is worth the effort.
Be warned however, this area is more tolerant of church bell chimes than anywhere else you could imagine. The tune played on each quarter by the bells in the tower just lower down the slope, could easily drive you scatty. I didn’t recognise it but you could fairly easily adapt the extended version of “Mary had a little lamb” to the chimes. When you find yourself doing this at 3:45am, those pan-european style cheap block walls become a very attractive alternative to canvas.
On the way there, we drove through Parque Natural do Alvão, stopping at a well known waterfall above a very steep ravine. The point from where we took the photos is a “one step to death” sort of place - as the drop-off is vertical. It was quite funny, as with the binoculars we could just make out some people near the waterfall and later on we were to meet them face to face. We had driven further up the road to the access point for the top of the falls and met them walking back to their car. It was three Portuguese guys who were very friendly and i recognised one that we had seen in the binocs. as he was wearing a set of yellow burmudas. I said “ we’ve seen you before”, “have you” he says, “yes, my wife saw you changing your shorts after you were swimming”. He didn’t know if we were teasing or not but we all had a good laugh and shared some details about where we were from (they were from Braga).
The mountain water wasn’t as cold as we had expected and we had a great time in the pools just above the waterfall. Dawn is sporting her Lidl “rock shoes”. It was a relief to find them for sale in Portugal as we had forgotten to pack ours. In fact Lidl has taken a prominent role in this trip as we downloaded the TomTom POI file for Spain and Portugal and so we can see where they all are and easily navigate to them. Lidl bread is easily as good as anyone’s and so are their Portuguese tarts.
A holiday "selfie" (yes really):
There were very loud frogs too which made a big splash when they jumped into the water if you got too near, spending the rest of the time right on the water’s edge, croaking across to the next one.
Travelling through these rural places is when you really understand what’s happened in Portugal over the past thirty years or so. There has been a huge migration away from the countryside and many houses and farms are empty. Some are for sale with boards outside but many more are derelict. It’s even more strange to see that new builds are preferred to restoration or renovation with the the pan-european style of cheap block walls and render being preferred to a good bit of insulation behind some thick granite stone.
The people that remain are half a generation or more older than I am and they are all cultivating their land - mainly vegetables it seems. They grow far more than they could eat so this must be for some degree of reward - although where their market is I don’t know. Everything seems to be done by hand or with small implements and it must be a hard way to earn a living. I’m not sure at all that they see this way of life through the same slightly rosy specs that I do.
Quinta Valbon is an example of what we have seen at many campsites. This was a farm, making wine (rather than a vineyard) which had been left to the weeds and brambles for ten years before being bought by the Dutch couple who now own it. They emigrated about nine or ten years ago, just themselves and were searching for a suitable spot for a campsite.
What they now have is a beautifully crafted terraced campsite, that is on a steep hillside looking over and down into a large valley with distant views to the mountains further south. This was a restoration done on a commercial scale, in that they completed the works on the farmhouse in less than a year. All the terraces were cleared and are down to grass, but the Adega (wine press building) is now a bar and lower down they have dug a large swimming pool and it’s all very well maintained.
For travellers in a Land Rover, access up the 20% hill wasn’t a problem, nor was getting up the steeper(?) site road. However although they encourage caravans as well as tents, the drivers are requested to to call ahead and they are decoupled so that Herman can pull them the final few kms with his Land Cruiser. I’m not sure I would chose this site unless I’d already been and was aware that this is worth doing - but just in case you are reading and wondering - yes it really is worth the effort.
Be warned however, this area is more tolerant of church bell chimes than anywhere else you could imagine. The tune played on each quarter by the bells in the tower just lower down the slope, could easily drive you scatty. I didn’t recognise it but you could fairly easily adapt the extended version of “Mary had a little lamb” to the chimes. When you find yourself doing this at 3:45am, those pan-european style cheap block walls become a very attractive alternative to canvas.
On the way there, we drove through Parque Natural do Alvão, stopping at a well known waterfall above a very steep ravine. The point from where we took the photos is a “one step to death” sort of place - as the drop-off is vertical. It was quite funny, as with the binoculars we could just make out some people near the waterfall and later on we were to meet them face to face. We had driven further up the road to the access point for the top of the falls and met them walking back to their car. It was three Portuguese guys who were very friendly and i recognised one that we had seen in the binocs. as he was wearing a set of yellow burmudas. I said “ we’ve seen you before”, “have you” he says, “yes, my wife saw you changing your shorts after you were swimming”. He didn’t know if we were teasing or not but we all had a good laugh and shared some details about where we were from (they were from Braga).
The mountain water wasn’t as cold as we had expected and we had a great time in the pools just above the waterfall. Dawn is sporting her Lidl “rock shoes”. It was a relief to find them for sale in Portugal as we had forgotten to pack ours. In fact Lidl has taken a prominent role in this trip as we downloaded the TomTom POI file for Spain and Portugal and so we can see where they all are and easily navigate to them. Lidl bread is easily as good as anyone’s and so are their Portuguese tarts.
A holiday "selfie" (yes really):
There were very loud frogs too which made a big splash when they jumped into the water if you got too near, spending the rest of the time right on the water’s edge, croaking across to the next one.
Comments