EVIL REAL REVISITED

HAVING ONLY ON TUESDAY DECLARED my lifelong intent to never set foot in the vile city of Vila Real, it is a tribute to the powers of persuasion possessed by my wife that I found myself there once again, early last Wednesday morning. The justification was easy to understand: we travel without the burden of the modern automobile* – something which has ups and downs – and the stinking city of Vila Real is a major road (and previously rail) hub.

 

THUS WE BRIGHT AND EARLY LEFT THE HAVEN of the Upper Douro at Sabrosa once again; once again we boarded the bus with the gentleman who has been our driver on so many occasions recently, in the company of the same schoolchildren on their way to do exams as boarded the bus yesterday. Our bus driver, a man with the handlebar moustache of a master of ceremonies at a Victorian music hall performance, gave us our last feeling of comfort before we entered the hated “civilization” of sinister Vila Real.

 

WE PERHAPS DID NOT FEEL so comfortable about this gentleman last week, as we waited outside the railway station in the little riverbank town of Pinhão, where, feeling lucky after a good lunch, I left my wife stationed with the suitcase and bags and went off to a bar to try my luck at the new-fangled “Euromillions” lottery-style betting event, as well as to sneak a little glass of Port wine.

 

THE CHANCES OF WINNING THE PRIZE in this lottery are basically nil; but the chances of drinking an excellent, homemade Port Wine are one hundred percent in our favour in this region. Next to me at the bar in the tavern, having been served an enormous glass of red wine, was the man whom we soon after discovered was our bus driver. He then drove on a route unknown to us through mountains and on the edge of ravines that would probably make a Tyrolean sick looking down. Hearts still in mouths, we bade him farewell.

 

THAT WAS LAST WEEK. TODAY, HEAVY-HEARTED, we did the same as we arrived to change horses in the evil city at Vila Real bus “station”, with just over an hour to kill before our trip home to our country residence in Celorico da Beira, passing through Régua, Lamego and Viseu. The trip was wonderful, but that one hour and twenty minutes in the hated Vila Real was more than I could take.

 

MY DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTICAL POWERS are more than enough to relate what happened during that short time, but I would rather adopt a Brétonesque, Woolfian or Joycean cop-out style of writing to give one an idea of the events:

 

BUT INSTEAD: WE HAVE:

 

No left luggage office (which left us almost immobile)

No ramps outside the station for those with luggage

Imperfectly cobbled streets which were a chore for a wheeled suitcase

Spitting in the streets to a scale which suggested there might be some kind of municipal prize for the best spitter

Milk watered down with water at a breakfast café

Margarine instead of butter on toast

No air cooling system in the station

Mis- dis- and lack of information about bus times

Panic after our bus left empty and without us – without anyone explaining that there had been a change in plans and another one was on its way.

 

IN THE END, I CHECKED THE EUROMILLIONS results in a little tobacconists shop while we were still at a roadside café watching and listening to people spit on the pavement. Ostensibly I won nothing, but in the end, when the bus started moving, about to leave Vila Real behind, I felt like a millionaire.

 

*(My wife has her own view of life under these circumstances: www.acarlesslife.blogspot.pt . My picture shows the head offices of the local governor -- on the left) 

LAND OF GREATS

 

WITHOUT BEING FULLY AWARE of what was in store, I have found myself of late on a journey throughout the wine-rich lands of the River Douro in the north of Portugal. I have lived in Lisbon on and off for over thirty years; yet this area is a novelty for me.

 

THE TRAIN UPRIVER FROM OPORTO, then the short boat-ride to the waterside hotel at the confluence of rivers in the Porto Antigo hotel in Mosteiró, where the only sound that could be heard was the lapping of waves, the clanging of metal rope fixtures against flagpoles as the wind hit them, and then – in the late evening – the porcelain and steel noises of the waiters and cleaning staff in the restaurant below us as they washed up and closed down for another day.

 

THEN THE CHEERFUL HAPPY-SLAPPING and giggling of two couples of otters, coming to see what was going on after lights were dimmed, and to find out whether the restaurant had served shellfish for dinner today.

 

THE ORGANISATIONAL SKILLS involved in all of this was in the able hands of my good lady wife, who had wished to surprise me after almost six weeks of intense work, which is why I have not been writing of late. Despite being utterly and totally against this in my view unnecessary trip, I am grateful to her for being able to enjoy the stunning scenery, the wonderfully honest and real food, the spectacularly fresh white wines and the renewed tenderness that can only be brought about when one is away from reality and only hears otters and swallows during the early morning period when we wake up in a queen-size bed.

 

THE SECOND STAGE OF THIS TRIP was to here, where I am now, writing this, in the little village of Sabrosa, the birthplace of Ferdinand Magellan, the first captain to circumnavigate the world, and whose (ruined) house I can see from where I sit, on the second floor balcony of the Solar dos Canavarros hotel. A little further along the main road has brought me to the house of Miguel Torga, one of the most famous Portuguese poets and novelists of the last century.

 

BOTH OF THESE GREAT MEN are remembered by the local people through plaques and monuments of varying taste and quality, but there are other men of renown who hail from this region, and it would be wrong of me not to mention their names.

 

YESTERDAY MY GOOD LADY WIFE AND I took a trip to the city of Vila Real, often termed the capital of the north of Portugal. My opinions about the city of Oporto have been made clear in Sunday Mornings passim, but nothing had prepared me for the nightmare of the view of this soulless, centreless, heartless and, in the end, useless city. It appears that every local handyman, mechanic, plumber and electrician had been granted a plot of land on which they could build a construction of their choice, but never imitating their neighbour’s work.

 

THE RESULT IS THE WORST MISH-MASH of construction and urban planning I have ever witnessed over three continents. Without wishing to be didactic, I would like to suggest to anyone who reads this: Do not go to Vila Real. It appears that no one there has a clue about what is going on: we asked for directions to the centre. A young lady in a shop said she had no idea. We then found out we were less than 200 yards away.

 

THIS CITY IS THE HOME to the current Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. You ask him from one day to the next what his policy is and he has no idea. You ask him the way to the future, for Portugal, and he will say it depends on the situation in the future. Or not. Thus we have a leader who is a reflection of the shithole from which he comes.

 

ON ANOTHER OCCASION MY WIFE and I decided to take a little excursion to Alijó, a small town close to Sabrosa which was the base for the famous Baron de Forrester, an Englishman who helped grant such greater visibility for the Port Wine trade that he was made a Portuguese noble. His table wine is delicious and costs about £1.50 even in restaurants. The best white wine I have ever tasted.

 

BUT I WAS NOT SO HAPPY about, on this journey from Sabrosa to Alijó, passing through the little village of Maçada do Caralho, which is the birthplace of the previous prime minister of Portugal, José Pinto de Sousa, also known as José Socrates.

 

THESE LATTER TWO GENTLEMEN have probably done as much damage to Portugal and the name of Portugal as the generations of explorers, poets, writers and chroniclers did it good. I am not sure what picture I should use to show the combined effect of Passos Coelho and José Socrates, but whatever I think of will be displayed above.