SUMMER SOJOURN PORTUGUESE STYLE

AUGUST 16, 2024 – Today we concluded our long-anticipated trip to Portugal to celebrate a special occasion “back in the village”: our grandson’s baptism combined with his first birthday party. This celebration accounts for the nine-day gap in my blog posts. The only other interruption of this length occurred five years ago when we traveled to Portugal for our son and daughter-in-law’s wedding in the same ancient church in the same ancient village where their son was christened and fêted last Saturday.

We were the honored guests of our daughter-in-law’s parents, whose house and grounds are perched halfway up a sharp slope of the local cordillera. Their Shangri-la within a larger paradise presides over ancient olive groves in Trás-os-Montes, about a two-hour drive due east of Porto. The bucolic scenery belies the hard work required to cultivate “azeitonas” across this rugged landscape with its unforgiving ground, stony and arid.

Our hosts are part of the Portuguese diaspora that settled in France, where they still maintain their primary residence. They left the village to escape the lack of economic opportunity under the half-century-long Salazar dictatorship that preceded the Carnation Revolution in April 1974. But if they became French in residence, prosperity, language and citizenship, Mylène’s parents maintained their Portuguese connections, as we observed in their connections to the land and their rapport with friends and family members who stayed behind.

On the outside and even under the surface, little has changed in the village of Cortiços, which celebrated its 500^th year—a long time ago. The primary building material is stone, and little of this physical world is older than stone. Some of the houses are so beaten by age, they look prehistoric—or if in historic times, then during the Roman Empire. In the vicinity, in fact, is a Roman bridge. As one of Mylène’s uncles explained, much of Portugal saw the confluence of many cultures and influences, from Gaelic to Roman to Moorish to Knights Templar to Spanish to English.

A simple map reflects the ultimate determinant of history: geography. Portugal is the southwest outpost of Europe. To the west the country faces the open ocean and by navigation of the seas, Portugal’s historical exploits in South America, Africa, India, the Far East. From the north came Gaelic influences; from the south flowed the Moors. From the east rose Rome. When one speaks of the “Portuguese,” all these outside influences must be considered.

Today in the village and its environs are traditions as deeply rooted in the local soil as are the sturdy olive trees that color the landscape, which arbors by all appearances are as rugged and resilient as any living things on earth. More about those trees a bit later. The most basic tradition of the village is communal reciprocity and generosity. Perhaps it is a universal custom of rural folk, where local inhabitants naturally turn to each other in both good times and bad; where mutual dependency is as essential for survival as for the full celebration and fulfillment of life.

This commitment to the common good was expressed in well-schooled English by Gonçalo, grandson of the village mayor; the mayor being the first cousin of our host, Mylène’s father. Gonçalo was once a Jesuit seminarian, destined to become a priest, but he diverted to law. For the summer he’s working in the family business—a small custom fabricator of high-end doors and cabinets that are shipped all over Portugal. After watching operations for a bit, we were invited into a break space, where the grandfather poured us homemade port.

I asked Gonçalo about the Portuguese economy and how run down everything appeared in two places we’d visited outside the region—Peniche, on the Atlantic coast, and Pinhão, gateway to the Alto Douro region, famous for its vineyards and spectacular scenery. He reported that except for the larger cities of the coast and select areas of tourism, the economy struggles. He also remarked that the attributes of the village—communal generosity, sharing—are missing from the urban centers. A global phenomenon, I thought.

What I observed in the interactions among family, friends and villagers was an open heartedness as great as any among people I’ve encountered around the world. They shared their bounty—their food, drink, and joie de vivre. They gave generously of their labor in preparation for the common celebration of the prince from afar—our grandson—as if he were their own local royalty.

If we found ourselves in a place that appeared “provincial,” its progeny are hardly so. Gonçalo was one example; our daughter-in-law, another. Fluent in several languages, she is a woman of the world, as comfortable in the finest parts of New York and Paris as in her uncle’s sheep pasture where there once grazed the lamb that fed us the night before the baptism. But what my wife and I found most touching was how warmly, deeply, graciously our son has been embraced by these people of olive country and how he has responded.

This fully reciprocal relationship between Byron and Mylène’s extended family is nothing short of a fairy tale. Accepted in the village as a native son is our son, born in Korea, who at four months of life came to us in the center of North America to be an American. We provided for him according to the best of our means and efforts, then turned him loose to the world. He went to Babson College (Boston)[1], then by a college connection, landed a job at a French bank in New York. A year later he was transferred to the mother ship in Paris, where he lived and worked for three years, became a Francophone and . . . drum roll . . . met Mylène, born, reared and educated in France but true to her Portugal roots to be sure.

As a test perhaps, at least in part, she led Byron to “her village,” as she calls it, in Trás-os-Montes. At first, her grandfather thought her beau was “a Moor”—with whom the elderly Catholic would have been perfectly accepting because, after all, Byron was his granddaughter’s choice. But Byron was not merely a polite guest. With his winning smile, hearty handshake, genuine interest in the needs and wants of others, he rolled up his sleeves and joined in the work and life among the olive trees. In short order he won the hearts of all in the community who met him—upon the very first impression. And now his son—with a Portuguese name, no less!—has become very much one of the family, one of the village.

And in fairy tale fashion, just as the prince is now a king, so are we of Byron’s family treated like royalty by the Portuguese. My wife and I and my sister Jenny[2] were welcomed in as if we’d spent our entire lives in the village. And on this occasion, joining us was Byron’s birth mother all the way from Seoul. She too was embraced just as warmly and openly; likewise, our urbane Portuguese friends from Lisbon, João, Johanna and their young, lively son, who’d come to the village five years ago for the wedding and returned for last weekend’s grand celebration.

As an amateur photographer I saw scenes to shoot wherever I looked, especially in the times of magic light. If I’d captured one percent of them, I’d have collected thousands of photos to curate. Continually, however, I suppressed the impulse to view sights through the camera lens, and instead let the continuous stream of images lodge themselves in my memory.

One evening before supper in the shade of the lush willow tree outside the kitchen entrance and in sight of yet another spectacular sunset, I descended the heavy stone staircase from the yard down to the road. Then on the other side I walked down another stairway of enormous stones to the area within the olive grove where the birthday party had been staged[3]—site of the pig-roast and out-pouring of port and Super Bock beer and of course, the enormous layered cake constructed by a confeiteiro family friend in Mirandela, a town of consequence 20 minutes away. A photographer from Porto had been hired to capture images of the celebration, and I admired her unintrusive ubiquity, as Portuguese music drifted over the happy crowd.

Now alone in this “event space,” I walked farther into the grove, then down a steep pitch into an adjoining grove to take one picture, at least, of the endless rows and cross rows of olive trees that converged into thin lines before disappearing over a distant ridge[4].

The sheer scale of olive tree cultivation was mind-boggling. Twice a month the grounds must be cleared of competing vegetation and the trees themselves pruned of suckers that draw precious “água” away from the point of it all: olive production. This year the crop looks good. Spring rains came but not in the unusual deluges that flooded the area last year. In November what promises to be a good harvest will take place. Remarkable machines will be deployed in the operation. The specialized apparatus is positioned next to the tree, and a large circular net is then spread under the branches. For a minute or two the machine shakes the tree and olives rain into the net, which then funnels them into a hopper. After four or five trees the hopper is emptied into a field truck, which halls the crop away to a nearby cooperative facility that presses the oil out of the fruit for subsequent bottling and distribution. Expenses are paid and net proceeds distributed to the coop members.

Each tree, I’d been told, generates on average 14 liters of olive oil. I took an outsider’s amateur stab at the overall economics, but I had too few parameters (e.g. trees are planted seven meters apart, which, if my math is halfway correct, translates to about 108 trees per acre; 272 per hectare) to render the exercise productive. I had no idea about equipment acquisition and maintenance costs; fuel expense; irrigation (not universal, by any means, but present in certain areas). And what about labor, processing, insurance, administrative costs, and of course, pricing? What are the main sources of foreign competition? The impact of weather variables and climate change? I couldn’t begin to build a model—or burden a translator to ask all my questions and convey back all the answers, especially amidst easy conversation during a well-stocked, well-lubricated celebration, though the setting was most appropriate for my inquiry: olive growers fraternizing in an olive grove in olive country.

On that evening before supper as I wandered alone among the trees, I put economics aside and feasted on the experience of walking among the rows, touching the rough bark of these amazing trees that live forever; that since ancient times have provided sustenance to the people who figured out how to master cultivation of olea europaea. I tugged gently at olive branches and held my hand up to the green olives. Through the small narrow leaves of a tree tickling my face I peered at a distant hillside covered with olive trees and thought of the symbolism grafted onto the olive branch. I thought of the simple edifying taste of fresh warm homemade bread dipped in olive oil, and it brought me inner peace.

I was tempted to wander farther—much farther—down to the narrow dirt road where three days before Mylène’s father had taken us (loaded on a Herculano farm wagon loaded with hay bales for our comfort and pulled by his Same – Aragon 70 tractor) on a long tour of his groves[5]. Along the road was a stone wall built by the hands and sweat of generations long gone. Cork trees and vines lined the way, giving added character to the scenery. Then came a picturesque break in the ancient wall; an open space in the shape of the bottom half of a semi-circle left by stones having fallen or been pushed aside. The curved vacancy caressed a perfectly composed scene beyond the wall—olive trees in the foreground; a copse of cedar beyond them, rising ground beyond, striped with more rows of olive trees. From my vantage point aboard the hay wagon, I’d quickly surveyed the surroundings so that I could later return at my leisure and use my camera to imitate an artist’s canvas.

But my “painting session” wasn’t to be. It was too distant to reach and return from before supper. I turned around and climbed back up the slope through the grove and on up to the house. I would have to be satisfied with the image that had flashed into sight as we’d passed it on our hay wagon outing.

I made my way back up to house to join the others for supper. We feasted past dusk and into the darkness. A million stars lit up the heavens, with a waxing moon sailing across the celestial sea.

The next day 20 of us would gather again for a cruise up the Rio Douro from Pinhão, a little over an hour’s drive southwest of Cortiços. Along our route, terraced vineyards rose dramatically above the river, and around each bend, we drank of the spectacular scenery that makes this area a UN Heritage Site. Scattered among the terraces were elegant quintas and names reflecting the early and continuing English ties to the region and to the development of port wine; names such as “Croft,” “Dow” and “Taylor.”

After the cruise we picnicked in the shade of a park near the water’s edge, then visited Quinta das Cavalhas immediately across the Eiffel-designed bridge from Pinhão. Late in the afternoon, Beth, Jenny, and I bade farewell to the group and drove southeast along the river to Lamego. There while Beth waited patiently, Jenny and I climbed the famous 686 steps leading up to the famous church, Santuario Nossa Senhora dos Remedios. On the way up we admired the religious scenes depicted in tiles at each of the dozen or so landings[6]; on the descent we enjoyed the view of the boulevard extending forth from the base[7]. We drove on to Aveiro where we spent the night at the Hotel Aveiro Palace with its elegant 19^th century exterior and comfortable four-star modern interior.

The next day, we hiked past numerous examples of art nouveau and art deco architecture to the recently restored old train station with its famous tile scenes depicting life in Aveiro’s past—harvesting salt, fish and grapes. After browsing through a number of tchochkie shops, we headed for the beach and famous striped houses of Cosa Nova just outside Aveiro. All too many tourists—mostly Portuguese; some from Spain and France—had the same idea. Not a parking spot was to be found. We continued on farther down the key to find more spacious conditions, lunch al fresca and fine access to a forever beach and the pounding surf of the Atlantic. Families were out in droves with their ever so colorful beach umbrellas[8]. If the sun was bright and the fresh air pleasantly warm, even hot, the ocean was too cold for swimming, though here and there a soul or two braved the water briefly.

At 4:00 we turned away from the sea and headed straight for Lisbon, where the “Google Maps Lady” went into panic mode and turned the path ahead into a pretzel. Clearly she had never before traveled the approaches to the Humberto Delgado Aeroport and specifically, to the car rental return. In the nick of time we parted ways with her but led ourselves straight into the taxi lane with no way out. So close to the rental car return lane yet so far away, hemmed in as we were by a barrier, we laughed ourselves silly, knowing how ridiculous we must’ve appeared in our big red SUV among the black sedans with light green roofs and rooftop taxi lights. By the time we’d finally returned the car and caught the shuttle for the short ride to our airport hotel, we were still laughing hysterically—a good way to conclude our sojourn in Portugal.

By the time we landed on home ground this evening, we felt the wear and tear of our travels. Three consecutive days in the torrid zone—over 100F in the shade—early in the trip had taken their toll. More significantly, we’re not in our 20s 30s 40s or even our 50s or 60s anymore. But this trip was an important one for us—as important as any we took at a younger age.

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[1] Thanks to an errant email, I was connected with Ed, an extraordinary individual who happened to share my last name—the seventh most common in Sweden. He and his wife, Frances, lived outside of Boston, had season tickets to my oldest sister’s chamber orchestra, Pro Arte; Ed and Frances became best of friends with Kristina and her late husband, Dean. Ed and Frances also happened to have a son who lived in Minneapolis, and thus often visited our neck of the woods. On one such occasion, Byron, a junior in high school at the time, was on hand and joined us for dinner. It was a serendipitous encounter at an auspicious time: Byron was applying to colleges, and Frances was the librarian-turned-instant-emissary-and-recruiter for Babson College, a 15-minute drive from Kristina and Dean’s house. She asked Byron what career and what colleges he was considering (business; Boston). Frances urged him to apply to Babson, a highly reputable business college that catered to international students; he applied, was admitted, matriculated and four years later graduated.

[2] Unable to join us on this occasion, at the wedding celebration five years ago, Garrison the taciturn writer bonded closely with Mylène’s extroverted and indefatigable father; they’ve since reconnected during the latter’s visits to Connecticut, where the two members of their own mutual admiration society share their puckish humor.

[3] Event site: