Issue:
December
2011

By Buzzy Gordon

Compared to its larger neighbor on the peninsula they share, Portugal hardly gets the number of tourists it deserves; even then, most visitors flock to the better known areas of the country, such as the beaches of the Algarve, the port wine country of the Douro Valley or the exotic capital city, Lisbon. Often overlooked is Portugal’s geographical center – which is a shame, because this region contains a number of absolute treasures of history and culture.

Not far inland from the Atlantic coast is the city of Coimbra, an ancient center of learning that is home to one of the oldest universities in the world, a peer to the venerable institutions of Bologna, Salamanca and Cambridge. The jewel of the campus is its ancient library, with reading tables carved from the richest woods Portugal’s former colonies had to offer, and gilt-edged bookcases that display beautifully preserved leather-bound scholarly volumes -- although the rarest and most precious tomes are kept out of sight, locked in a vault.

Moving further into the interior, the town of Belmonte is one of the links in a chain of Portugal’s medieval fortress settlements: its first charter dates back to the year 1199. Belmonte is the proud birthplace of Pedro Álvares Cabral, who, at the tender age of 33, discovered Brazil in 1500. Belmonte is also a famous place of refuge for a significant Jewish community fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth century. They lived in houses outside the castle walls, where the symbols of their professions, such as tailors’ scissors, can still be seen engraved on the doorposts. When religious persecution crossed the border from Castile into Portugal, Belmonte’s Jews lived as Catholics in public while preserving their traditions in secret for hundreds of years, until they finally built a synagogue, Bet Eliahu, less than two generations ago.

Two unique museums and one remarkable hotel are additional reasons to spend more than a day in Belmonte. The Jewish Museum documents the history of that people and civilization from before the birth of Jesus to the modern era, and the Olive Oil Museum not only houses artifacts but also promotes the art of tasting the nectar of the Mediterranean.

Just outside town, on a hillside slope with stunning views of the countryside, is the Pousada Convento de Belmonte. Skillful restoration has converted the former Nossa Senhora da Esperança Convent into a charming inn, harmoniously incorporating the original architecture into its modern reincarnation. Delicious repasts of regional specialties, accompanied by wines from throughout Portugal, are served in the elegant dining room.

Central Portugal’s final surprise as one heads toward the border with Spain is the fortified town that appears to live in a time warp, Sortelha. The inhabitants’ one-storey granite homes are carved directly out of the craggy mountainside; the streets and lanes linking them follow the terrain’s topography. The entire village evokes the atmosphere of a medieval population center that is frozen in time, from the Gothic gateway that guards the town’s entrance to the public pillories to its unusual “rulers”: two grooves cut into a stone portal to represent measures of length (the 1.1-meter vara and the 0.66-meter côvado) used as instruments by traders in an age when systems of measurement had yet to be standardized.

Here, too, one can dine as they did in the Middle Ages, seated at long tables groaning under the weight of freshly roasted meats and goblets of wine.

The next time you succumb to the lure of Iberia, do as the Spaniards themselves do: use the award-winning international airport of Porto as the latest gateway to the entire northwest of the peninsula. And be sure to include central Portugal in any trip to fabled Lisbon or the legendary lands of Castile and Leon.

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