1936 On the Continent

to Leça, Vila do Conde, a seaside resort where you will buy exquisite pillow-lace, and Povoa do Varzim, where you will be able to rest at the grand Casino after strenuous hours among the crowds watching the religious processions held at this festive season. See Ancora Beach, a level stretch of fine, golden sand on the bank of a river that carries as an offering to the gigantic friendly sea the perfume of a country-side bathed in beauty. Go to Viana do Castelo, heart of the Minho, garden of Portugal, On the heights of Santa Luzia’s Mount you will forget Mount Pelegrino. The panorama before you impresses you as being almost artificial in its unexpected and lovely effects. A few days hence, in mid-August, the picturesque festivals known as the “Festas da Agonia” will be held here. You will go to Braga next, a town of historic monuments, old houses, churches and ancient buildings which recall other eras and other civilisations. There you enter the twelfth-century cathedral and climb to Bom Jesus, a celebrated and very beautiful sanctuary on the crest of a mountain, and the culminating point of a marvellous stairway which has on every flight a group of life-size sculptured figures representing the various stages of the Passion of Our Lord.
    Here, as everywhere else on the route you follow, there are excellent hotels and amusements. You will not stay long at Gerez, Taipas or Caldelas, quiet, perfumed,beauty-spots of the Minho province. You must not, however, leave Guimaraens without going up to the Penha and Saint Torcato. These are enclosed in an immense ring of mountains or “Serras,” only broken by the sea which is seen in the distance. Descend the mountain-slope, and after a short walk you will come to the walls of a medieval castle. There, eight centuries ago, Portugal had its genesis.
    The first king was born within those crumbling, sacred walls that sheltered the initial germ from which a race was to spring. At successive periods in their history the Portuguese nation prospered, establishing their independence by heroic deeds of war. Then began their adventurous search for new worlds, and the discovery of islands and continents that were till then wrapped in a veil of mystery and terror. They were the first to cross unknown oceans and to carry civilisation to distant lands in all parts of the globe, leaving indelible traces of a nation’s personality. And the twentieth century finds in Portugal not a spent country, but one that is energetically testing its renewed strength in an effort to ensure its future. And because of this, I hope you will look with the same tenderness at these venerable walls of the castle of Guimaraens as if you were bending over a bird’s nest or a child’s cradle.
Your Snaps
    Now on the quay, before your departure, let me have a look at your collection of photographs.
    Here we have pictures of “saloios” (peasants) from Estremadura, rustic people returning to their hamlets from market who, on meeting you, saluted you with the kindly greeting: “God be with you”; here is a shepherd from the Serra da Estrela, muffled up in his winter clothes, with sheepskin trousers, and a long crook, standing among his sheep and dogs; and here is a
capucheira
from the Beira Alta district; some girls from Minho in their picturesque costumes; the “campinos” from Ribatejo, with their typical crimson “coffee-bag” headgear and knee breeches, mounted on fiery horses from the pasture lands, and, in the distance, restless groups of wild bulls; here is an amusing picture of a typical Oporto street with a bullock-cart and its high ornamentalyoke. I see you took a photograph of the “tricanas” (typical Coimbra girls) and students of Coimbra; girls reaping in Alemtejo, and several scenes from a procession near Lisbon. This is a picture of the group of “Zé Pereiras,” the men with the big drums, whom you saw in Braga announcing the festivals to be held on St. John’s Eve; and these here are fishermen and women from Nazareth, in their characteristic gay clothes. I see you are taking home quite a collection of the varied, decorative costumes of the Portuguese provinces. Not even the women of Algarve with their curious hoods (“biocos”) are missing. Had you come at the end of January, you could have spent a few days at Praia da Rocha, where many English people live, and you would then have seen the wonderful sight of almond trees in bloom.
    Before you leave, let me impress upon you not