Seeking out a lesser-trodden side of Portugal, a traveler finds herself on a farm, sharing wine and empanadas with strangers from around the world.
“The empanadas are ready!” Anibal calls as he places the tray down. The six of us, strangers to one another, stand in the doorway, each too polite to claim the first place. The room, an old stable of exposed brick and wood, is candlelit and smells of fresh basil. The rustic table is laid for nine. Beside each setting sits rich red foods, flame-cooked peppers, sliced buffalo tomatoes, and crushed figs. The empanadas are perfectly uniform and piping hot.
Keen to escape the late autumn heatwave, my husband and I had left Porto earlier that morning. We had stopped briefly at a deserted meander on the Douro River to picnic and wash the city from our skin. Rechecking the map, we traced our route through Portugal’s Montanhas Magicas. We were heading to a working farm just thirty miles from the city in search of the spirit of rural Portugal.
Our map guides us to a walled and cobbled track barely the width of our Fiat 500. The unsigned farm, hidden below a village of graffitied walls and dog-guarded homes, lies in a sloped field of bare vines. The grapes had been harvested and bottled, and the young, fresh wine now lay in the honesty bar of the communal dining room. Above it hangs a blackboard, a record of consumption and debauchery.
On arrival, Anibal and Marie, the owners, shake our hands. Anibel is tall, tanned, and speaks with a Brazilian twang. “Come, I’ll show you the farm.” We tour the peacock coop, meet the resident street dogs, and stroke Zico the horse. We check out the massage yurt and the outdoor kitchen. ‘Perfect for sunsets,’ he tells us. The air is thick with eucalyptus and the palate a shifting tone of citrine and sunshine.
Under a lemon-laden tree, we are introduced to two other guests. The women, self-proclaimed digital nomads, continue to tap their keyboards as they tell us they are travelling in search of a hidden Europe. They speak with an American accent that I can’t quite place. “We have two more guests arriving later,” Anibal tells us.
We throw down our rucksacks in a room of hessian, linen, and whitewashed simplicity. We spend a lazy afternoon dipping in the cold water of the stone tanque and swinging in the hammock below the ancient olive tree. I drift in and out of sleep to the sounds of birch trees popping and peeling in the afternoon heat. We follow a path across the farm and through the forest to the water’s edge. We sit silently and watch the river crest in the wake of tourist boats. We and the farm go unnoticed.
We take our seats for dinner. Wine loosens tongues and sustenance comforts. From the darkness of the courtyard, Marie strums her guitar and opens with a soulful Fado. Among the tourist haunts of Porto, this might have felt like a cliché, but here, the raw emotion is palpable; we are all drawn into the inner circle, blurring the boundaries of the unfamiliar. As Vino Verde flows, we talk of love, both lost and broken. Our words are uncomplicated by a shared history. The ritual of sharing food and the melancholic melody has stripped away the immaterial, the small talk, and the unnecessary.
Somewhere over the river, a storm breaks. Thunder crashes through the valley and rain beats the corrugated steel roof like a tin drum. The young wine is uncorked, aired, and shared, it holds an acidity, like the greenness of youth. Conversations quicken. Voices rise. Secrets are shared. When the last two guests join the table. I am chatting with the girls about growing up in the projects. I am learning not of their childhood but of the culmination of experience that brought them here when there is an announcement.
Anibal introduces the last two guests, “This is Heather and Jake from Canada.” We all wave and chorus a ‘hello.’ “They will be staying with us tonight, and they have some news to share,” Anibal says.
“We got engaged today,” say the Canadians. We raise our glasses and cheer. The chalk scores on the honesty tab indicate it will be a long night, and just like that, we become a tiny part of their life story. Then, the night flows into sunrise.
A chorus of cockerels wakes me. Dogs bark into the misty morning air as vapour rises from the damp ground like a hoar frost. My head is groggy with the joy of the previous night. I walk up the narrow track to the village above. The promise of wild boar has deterred me from the woodland. The houses, decrepit and dilapidated, sit alongside wastelands. Cactus and euphorbia grow amongst self-seeded laurels. Trailing green fills every crack and burrows into brick.
Heavy paws against steel gates force me to quicken my pace; the atmosphere darkens. Houses locked like forts lay empty. A school yard of sun-cracked, grey concrete stands childless. Political slogans are sprayed across pebble-dashed walls. Beyond the farm, I am the uninvited.
From a balcony, a woman considers me, her slow head-to-toe stare burns through me. I feel foolhardy to be dressed in short pink shorts. I am too obvious, too exposed. It has been a long time since a woman made me feel this way. So close to Porto, this feels unexpected. I head for the main road to escape her gaze.
Beyond the pavement, the hill falls away to a graveyard of lavishly decorated headstones and vaults of skeletons. Women on all fours scrub the walkways between the graves of ornate iron and exotic flowers. Besides the dead, the wild is unwelcome. Life and death hold this space deep in Duoro Valley. The women glance up and then look away; their stares are different here. Watching this scene does not feel invasive, this is a display, an expectation, an honouring. It is the embodiment of the sweet lament of last night’s fado.
When I return to the track that leads to the farm, the mist has cleared, and the others have woken. A breakfast of baked yoghurt, eggs, and oil-soaked feta is served, every bit grown or made in the surrounding fields. The organic offering, rich in color and taste, is more than food; it is a reminder of the joy of travel and a lesson that the Portuguese table is a place of sharing and belonging.
As we pack our bags and say goodbye, Anibel teaches me the untranslatable word saudade which means to long for something you have loved but will never know again. That is this moment, the collision of our lives, these people, and this small farm in the Portuguese mountains.
We drive the narrow track to the village road. I look back, but the farm is already hidden. I think to myself, ‘this is how it should be‘ because the Portuguese soul lies in the spaces in between, in the webs weaved between wildness and tradition, in the heart of the family, and the sharing of food. On this tiny dot of land, just north of the Duoro Valley, we found the spirit of rural Portugal, and it was wild, gritty, and gloriously real.
