Rural Alentejo and the Site of a Great Battle (Maybe)
Faro to Castro Verde
27-Sept-2022
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| Portugal |
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| Castro Verde Municipality |
Faro to Castro Verde is 105km and takes just over an hour on modern roads. Much to the irritation of our sat nav, we decided to use
the old N2 instead, though it did everything it could to divert us. Once a nationally important
north-south route, it is 10km shorter, but its twists and turns almost double the
journey time.
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| North from Faro to Castro Verde |
We crossed the Algarve's coastal plain, a land of tourist development, figs and olives, regimented rows of orange trees and occasional
vineyards. From São Bras the road starts to climb, a slow twisting drive through cork
oaks and, higher up, eucalyptus. By Almodôvar we had reached Alentejo where the Campo Branco plain allowed much swifter progress.
As usual Lynne was sceptical of my ability to find the hotel, but even before passing the 'Welcome to Castro Verde' sign I had
spotted the tower of the building across the street. I had seen Casa Dona Maria
on Google Street View and it would stand out in any Portuguese small town. Typically streets look like this…
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| Castro Verde |
…while Casa Dona Maria is this.
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| Casa Dona Maria, Castro Verde. Photographed from our hotel room balcony |
A Neo-Gothic/Moorish/Manueline fantasy, it was built in the 1920s by a wealthy farmer called Álvaro Romano Colaço who may, some suggest, have had more money than taste.
It’s a Sandwich, Jim, but Not as we Know it
Finding a cafe for a late lunch we shared the largest cheese toastie known to humanity - we would happily have shared the non-sharing size.
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| It's a sandwich, Jim, but not as we know it, Castro Verde |
By the time we had checked in to our hotel it was 3 o'clock, and as we had left home over 12 hours earlier it was nap time.
In the evening we visited the nearby Restaurant Alentejano. All the meals (otherthan toasties!) from this and other Alentejo posts are gathered in The Alentejo: Eating and Drinking, a companion post to Eating the Algarve
28-Sept-2022
Castro Verde, a Concelho, a Freguesia and a Town
Castro Verde, in south-central Portugal is one of the country's 308 Concelhos (municipalities) and one of the 14 that make up the District of Beja (we visited Beja in 2018) - often referred to by its old name of Baixa Alentejo.
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| The Concelho of Castro Verde and its position in Portugal (inset) |
The Municipality of Castro Verde covers 500km² and is divided into 4 Freguesias (civil parishes) – the map above shows 5 but Casével was merged into Castro Verde parish in 2013. The name ‘Castro Verde’ can refer to either the whole municipality (pop 7,500), or the largest parish in the municipality (pop 4,000), or the largest town in that parish (pop c3,000). Confusing? Yes.
Ermida de São Pedro das Cabeça
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| Castro V. Parish |
The Ermida, near the village of Geraldos, is 5km east of Castro Verde down a series of ever smaller roads. The final and smallest
turns a bend, climbs a hill and there it is, a chapel
of little architectural merit, standing alone on a windswept hill top. The door
was locked and through the grimy window all we could see was cleaning
equipment.
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| Lynne and the Ermida de São Pedro das Cabeças |
Despite the bright blue sky, the sun had yet to warm the air and the strong breeze had a biting edge for which I was inappropriately
dressed. To the west the Plain of Ourique, stretched past Castro Verde to the town
of Ourique itself, and beyond.
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| Castro Verde across the Plain of Ourique |
Eastwards it continues as far as they eye can see.
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| Eastwards across the Plain of Ourique |
The Battle of Ourique
In 1139 Afonso (without an 'l') Henriques, Count of Portugal, was busy fighting King Alfonso (with an 'l') VII of Leon, to whom he was, theoretically, a vassal. The
rulers of the petty kingdoms and counties of northern Iberia spent more time
fighting each other than fighting the Moors who controlled the south of the
peninsula.
Moorish incursions led him to disengage with Alfonso VII to safeguard his Southern boundaries. On the 25th of July, after God came to him
in a vision and promised a great victory, he attacked and destroyed a much
larger Moorish force led by five princes, all of whom were killed. This was the
Battle of Ourique, after which Afonso Henriques was acclaimed King of Portugal –
then just a modest area around Porto. He was crowned by the Archbishop of Braga
in 1142 and recognised by Alfonso VII the next year. Ourique was the start of
the Reconquista which would see the Moors driven from what is now Portugal by 1249.
In Spain the Emirate of Grenada resisted until 1492.
In the late 16th century, the popular King Sebastião I (see Lagos
for his story) visited this hillside and commanded the construction of ‘a very
sumptuous building’ to commemorate the battle. He must have been disappointed,
even by 16th century standards the Ermida is hardly ‘sumptuous’.
Other Battle Memorials
Behind the Ermida is a memorial pillar erected in 1940. Next-door in Spain, dictator Francisco Franco (ruled 1936-75) successfully
used myths of the Reconquista to bolster his nationalist/fascist government. This would never
quite work in Portugal but dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (ruled 1936-68)
was still keen to be seen as a legitimate successor of Afonso Henriques.
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| 1940s Pillar Memorial to the Battle of Ourique |
Behind that is another memorial erected in 1989, on the 850th anniversary of the Battle. Although behind the 1940 memorial, its
brightness makes the dull pillar easy to ignore. Marcello Caetano, Salazar’s
successor, was overthrown by a military coup on the 25th of April 1984, the Carnation Revolution which eventually led to Portugal becoming a liberal democracy. The newer memorial, colourful, original
and with a joie de vivre that Salazar would never have tolerated, presents the
new democratic government as a legitimate successor to Afonso Henriques.
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| 1980s Memorial to the Battle of Ourique |
But What is the Truth?
Some problems: across the whole vast plain no one has ever found evidence of a major battle – and Ourique is too far south for
Afonso to have been dealing with a border incursion. He may have led a raiding
party who were intercepted by a Moorish force, but that would have been
skirmish, not a battle.
The chroniclers were unfamiliar with the area; there is a Vilã Cha de Ourique near Santarém which could be a possible location, but
there is little corroboration in the Moorish chronicles.
The vision before the battle, the five dead princes - whose shields still adorn the Portuguese flag and are very clear on the 1940 memorial
pillar above - and the victory against great numerical odds give the story an
air of unreality. There must be a kernel of truth, Afonso Henriques did
become the first king of an independent Portugal, but there has been some
serious legend making.
São Marcos da Ataboeira
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| S Marcos, Parish |
The village is off the main road and straggles a remarkable distance for a place with a few hundred inhabitants. We eventually
reached a small square with the church of São Marcos on one side. We got out of the car, observed
that the church was locked and lined up a photo.
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| Square, São Marcos da Ataboeira |
A middle-aged woman emerged from one of the nearby houses and marched towards us. I hoped she was coming with a key and an offer to unlock
the church. 'Bom dia,' I said. She didn't answer, but stopped a couple of
metres away and stared. Having run out of Portuguese small talk, I smiled and
said it was a nice day. She continued to stare, and then she stared some more. I have not been stared at so
hard or so long since we were in rural China. With my 'North European on holiday' look, I am
obviously not a local, but surely I stood out much less than I would in a
Chinese village.
After a while she turned and marched off. ‘Probably gone to fetch the men with the pitchforks,' Lynne mused.
We were not overly impressed by the harmony between the slabby buttresses and the stumpy tower - perhaps the writer had his tongue in his cheek - but we admired the bright blue paintwork.
Then, as there was no sign of anyone with a key - or a pitchfork - we returned
to the car and left.
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| Church of São Marcos, São Marcos da Ataboeira |
São Marcos da Ataboeira to Entradas
The village of Entradas is in the northwest corner of its parish and a minor road from São Marcos takes a direct route. Right at the
start a sign described the road as ‘submersíval’, not a difficult word to
translate, but a surprise when all we could see was parched grassland.
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| In Grassland! |
A little further on we followed a low embankment and passed another sign, identical to one on the road beside Portimão dock. There it accurately
describes what could happen to those driving carelessly but here it looked a little melodramatic.
Our 10km journey crossed empty, rolling grassland, sometimes described as pseudo-steppe. About half way, it crossed a wide gully and the first sign,
at least, began to make sense. It had not rained for months, but a sudden
downpour would turn the gully into a stream and the road into a ford, if it was
even passable.
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| Great Bustard, Photo Andrej Chudy* |
Spain and Portugal are home to 60% of the world’s surviving great bustards, and the large ground-nesting birds live on such grasslands. The last British great bustard was shot in 1832, but they have recently been reintroduced on the grasslands of Salisbury plain.
We saw none during our drive, but the bird dominates the arms of São Marcos da Ataboeira while Entradas prefers a sheep, a turkey,
poppies and wheat.
Entradas
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| Entradas Parish |
Entradas now sits on one side of the major road from Beja, but apart from access roads at each end of the village, it has turned its
back on its former life-line. As the parish arms suggest the current economy is rural
and based on sheep, cows, wheat, cork and olives.
Museum of Rural Life, Entradas
The village streets were never designed for cars. Several cobbled streets ran roughly parallel to the main road, with occasional cross
streets, but this was not a grid plan; there were kinks and variations in width
in the ‘parallel’ streets, one of which came to a dead end. We were aiming for
the Museum of Rural Life, and passed a sign at the entrance of the village. We
followed the arrow and, as there were no further signs, kept as straight as possible.
We were soon at the other end of the village, where a ‘Museum’ sign pointed
back the way we had come.
Turning round, we found our way to square which may have been the village centre…
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| Village square, Entradas |
…and just beyond it, the museum.
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| Museo da Ruralidade, Entradas |
It turned out to be a very good museum of its type, and free, to boot. Many of the exhibits have photos
showing them in use. A wooden plough with a medieval look….
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| Wooden plough, Entradas Museum |
…was in use when the
photograph below was taken.
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| Wooden plough, Entradas Museum The text concerns the change from wood to metal in the early 20th century |
There was a horse-drawn sit-upon-harrow
that would have provided the bumpiest of rides across the arid, hard-packed local soil.
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| Sit-upon harrow, Entradas Museum |
Pottery was on display
beneath a picture of the same pottery being sold.
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| Pottery, Entradas Museum |
A reconstruction of a
shelter…
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| Shelter, Entradas Museum |
…was adjacent to a photograph
of a similar shelter in use. The photo is dated 1959. I know I am old, but I
was amazed this photo was taken in western Europe in my lifetime. I made a joke
about pitchforks earlier, but this is a modern museum with a modern lay-out and
technology; rural Portugal is very much part of the 21st century. The changes we have seen since our first visit 40
years ago are immense, in northern Portugal we had seen people collecting water
from the village pump, in the Algarve the ladies of Vilarinhos (between Loulé
and São Brás) still did their laundry in the communal wash house, but even so
the Portugal of 1959 was barely recognisable in 1982, which in its turn is so
unlike today. The whole world has changed, but Portugal has changed faster than
most.
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| A shelter in use, Entradas Museum |
There was also a threshing machine as every rural museum needs a threshing machine.
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| Threshing machine, Entradas Museum |
Back to Castro Verde
We returned to town, passed the roundabout where sheep may safely graze, parked near our hotel and walked to the northern end of Rua Dom Afonso Henriques. It was not very far; Castro Verde is a small town.
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| Sheepy roundabout, Castro Verde |
The town’s two most important churches sit beside or above this road, the Church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios….
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| Nossa Senhora dos Remédios |
….and further down, the Royal Basilica of Nossa Senhora da Conceição.
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| Basilica of Nossa Senhora da Conceiçã |
Both were closed, but the garden by the Basilica had one of the more enigmatic memorials to the Battle of Ourique,
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| Battle of Ourique Memorial, Castro Verde Basikica |
I also liked this house near the basilica.
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| House near the Basilica, Castro Verde |
It was now lunchtime and as this post has now gone on long enough, I shall close it here, conveniently
leaving enough material for the next post. As I started with a toastie, I will
finish with a toastie; different café, different filling, and not sharing size,
though it was sufficient for the two of us.
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| Toastie |
An Afterthought
There are 25 photographs in this post. Apart from a couple of indistinct figures in the distance, there is no living human being in these photos other than Lynne and myself. This was not intentional, but it is a bit odd.
Évora (2016)
Mértola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - also under Algarve
Beja, Capital of Baixo Alentejo(2018)
Castro Verde (1): Surrounding Villages (2022)
Castro Verde (2): Castro Verde and Ourique (2022)
Serpa (2023)
The Alentejo, Eating and Drinking (2024)
Even though some of what you saw may have been a little disappointing or just typical of the area, you obviously came across a real gem in the Rural Museum
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