We've stayed at the Casa do Outeiro more times than I can remember. We have kept going back because Dona Ana and Dom João have become friends as well as hosts. We love to hear the family stories such as the one below.
Nobody was pleased. The English family cut off Rooke with the classic penny because he was marrying a foreigner and a Catholic. Sofia fared no better: she was marrying a heretic Protestant! They had to elope to Brazil, where they made a fortune and – surprise, surprise - money seems to have talked and they were taken back into the fold. One of Dona Ana's daughters was given the name Sofia in memory of Sofia Rooke.
We don't have a picture of any of the Rookes but how about this painting of Gaspar de Abreu e Lima Telles de Menezes; isn't he a distinguished-looking ancestor?
Let's take a closer look at this lovely old manor. It dates back at least to the sixteenth century, though the room we stay in may be the remnants of a torreão - a defence and storage tower perhaps almost as old as the country itself.
The kitchen too is in the oldest part of the building. We just love the ancient wooden beams and the copper cooking vessels. Who wouldn't love to make dinner in a place like this?
In the evenings we have often revelled in a roaring log fire in the library. There's something primeval about the lure of fire; the warmth, the life and colour and the light but here it is enhanced by book-lined walls and aged, comfy, leather chairs. Breakfast may be served here in winter.
In the lower hall between the bedroom and the library are more kitchen artefacts. We just love these old, slightly battered copper and brass vessel and containers.
What about breakfast in summer? The tables are then placed outside on a shady veranda. Later in the day you can cool off in the swimming pool or sit out under the sweet chestnut trees in the garden. In autumn there is the joy of the changing leaves.
You might even be lucky enough to arrive when there is one of the many fairs or festivals taking place in the Minho, even in the house itself. But the story of the Feast of Nossa Senhora da Luz is for another time and another post. Keep coming back to the blog to find out how a gallant Abreu e Lima narrowly averted a new War of the Roses!
If you would like to stay in a manor house and exchange stories with a gracious host and perhaps help keep it from falling into disrepair, why not log on to Turihab or Solares de Portugal (Links below.) They both have web sites in English as well as Portuguese. The old fashioned courtesies and the stories the owners can tell you will make your day.
www.turihab.pt
www.solaresdeportugal.pt
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Just on the outskirts of Porto near the Rio Douro is Villar D'Allen, a 19th century villa boasting a comprehensive collection of around 600 camellias, my Mum's favourite tree and hence the reason for our visit.
To read more about Julie and her Mum's visit, click here.
If you were to design and build a castle, isn't this exactly what you would draw: a square keep, four turrets with little conical hats on top, a crenellated wall with arrow slits. It's almost a perfect Lego design. Yet this is no Lego, it's a historic castle standing on a hill in Santa Maria da Feira, a region just south of Porto.
Against the sun the castle manages to look severe, threatening even but that is because we were there at the wrong time of day and couldn't stay for better pictures – we were due at a meeting in Porto later.
To see more about this castle, and its importance in Portuguese history, click here.
What is it that makes us interested in something? Is it our genes? Or maybe our surroundings? Our childhood experiences? Who knows? One thing that is certain is that some people experience an overwhelming fascination which may be incomprehensible to others. Most of us, for example, find entomology a bit of a turn off. Beetles and greenfly? Who cares as long as we can rid our gardens of them? Other interests, even if we don't share them, are more understandable.
Here I'm going to share with you the obsession of Dr Lopo de Carvalho, a doctor who lived in Geraz do Lima just off the southern road from Viana do Castelo and its suburb of Darque to Ponte de Lima.
To learn about his special interest, click here.
You won't see too many flesh and blood shoeshine boys in Ponte de Lima, not even ones as well coifed as this one. I'm delighted to say that our little town is thriving and provides plenty of good work without young men having to clean someone else's shoes.
We also have an entrepreneurial mayor who has encouraged people into the town by sponsoring every sort of festival you can think of, from the Festa de Sarrabulho, a local dish made from pork offcuts and rice stewed in pigs' blood and the Festa do Vinho Verde, a green wine festival, through exhibitions of science and technology for students to wedding dresses and accoutrements. Some festivals are more appetising to an outsider's taste than others: what about a festival of lampreys? I find the fish so ugly that it puts me off but others claim it is really tasty. Whatever your particular interest, though, there will be a festival for you in Ponte de Lima, so all summer long the town bustles with locals and visitors.
To find out where this charming, old fashioned scene of a city gent and shoe shine boy fits into the picture, click here.
Today I'm taking you to the village of Brufe, high in the Serra Amarela, the Yellow Mountains, by the border with western Spain. Mind you, when I was last there, at the end of a brutally hot summer, the land was so parched that it wasn't so much yellow as pale fawn.
There is an old English saying, "When gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion." I don't think kissing has fallen out of fashion in Portugal yet and so, if you look carefully, you will always find butter-yellow gorse in bloom somewhere in the mountains as well as a host of other wild flowers and shrubs.
To find out why we are going to Brufe, what we shall see on the way and what we find at the end of the ride, click here.
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