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From Galicia into Portugal via the car ferry at A Guarda, then down to Ponte de Lima, where it's market day. One sandy bank of the Lima River, crossed by a part-Roman, part-medieval bridge, has hosted markets since 1125. After buying some plaited bunches of garlic to take home, it's off to have lunch with a count.
The Conde de Calheiros is an energetic 50-year-old who has harnessed Portuguese government and Brussels funds to rehabilitate the rundown grand old houses owned by his ilk. The quid pro quo is that part of them is opened as tourist accommodation. The Count, who has also been mayor of Calheiros, the village that bears his name, for the past 18 years, says his philosophy is, "I can only be happy if my neighbor is." To that end, he has also navigated E.U. bureaucracy to get funds to do up rooms in rustic village houses, enabling their owners to eke out falling farm income with a little tourism. "It's one way to help keep people in the countryside," he says.
At his family mansion, the Count shows the chapel where his father is buried, as is a fallen French soldier. The family jewels are also buried on the estate, as often happened in a country riven by wars. "We have a list of them," smiles the Count, "but no map. We've looked everywhere." He gives an aristocratic shrug.
From Ponte de Lima east across to Bragança and on to an isolated village called Rio de Onor, right on the Spanish border. Here Mariano Prieto, an engaging man, explains what sounds like communism gone right. In Rio de Onor, for as long as anyone can remember all work has been shared out at the direction of an elected president. Prieto, who held the post for 16 years, gives as an example the fact that for every four sheep a villager owns he or she must spend a day tending the village flock. Harvesting is also communal, as is the giant village bull. The cancer within this communism is not the absolute corruption of power but the thing that the Count is also trying to arrest: the flight of young people to the cities. Prieto, 68, says sadly that Rio de Onor had 200 inhabitants 40 years ago. Today it has 70, most of them living on remembrance of times past.
Back west to Porto, and a meeting with António Amorim, the scion of one of Portugal's wealthiest families. He is managing director of Amorim & Irmãos, cork makers. More than 50% of the world's cork is produced in Portugal. "It's probably the only industry where we are world leaders," says Amorim.
The number of cork stoppers made worldwide each year is 14 billion and growing, despite the synthetic stoppers some winemakers are adopting, especially the upstart Australians. Amorim is unruffled by this and believes grape and cork are in holy matrimony, even if the relationship can be improved by new technologies. He enthuses about cork's "elastic memory." This tendency to return to shape is what produces the round bit at the top of a champagne cork when a 35-mm cork cylinder is pushed part way into the 18-mm neck of a bottle.
In Porto it's pouring, and I get stuck in a different sort of bottleneck: city center gridlock. Eventually it breaks up and it's south toward Lisbon, stopping for the night at Fátima, where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to three children. The sanctuary on the site attracts faithful from all over the world. Some get about on their knees in piety or gratitude. The locals make a killing from statues, bottles of blessed water, Barbie dolls dressed as nuns ... I find it a very depressing place, but a busload of Irish at the hotel have a great time after their devotions, singing Danny Boy and other Irish songs well into the night, just below my room.
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Iberian Connections
A count with a social conscience, flourishing ancient trades and folk-singing Irish pilgrims
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'I Can Only Be Happy if My Neighbor Is Happy'
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Engine of Change
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Between Two Worlds
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People To Watch: Leire Pajin | Madredeus | Ariadna Gil
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