Unbeknownst to most, Portugal is a hotbed of Celtic culture. Celtic Life International correspondent Lesley Choyce tells us more.
Recently, my wife Linda and I grew weary yet again of what turned out to be a particularly harsh winter season even for our rugged selves accustomed to the raw bitter North Atlantic winds coming in off the coast of Nova Scotia. Unlike most of our fellow Canadian snowbirds, however, we seldom escape to tropical destinations for fear of being too hot. Instead, we seek out moderate temperatures in lesser-known, and less-touristy European destinations.
That is how we ended up bivouacked on a back street in the town of Amarante in northern Portugal where we encountered not a single other North American tourist, but instead we were surrounded by some gorgeous rivers, forests, and mountains worthy of hiking and adventure. It also put us within striking distance of what Lonely Planet calls, “One of the most evocative archeological sites in Portugal, Citania de Briteiros” – the ruins of a Celtic settlement dating back to the Iron Age.
Portugal had been kind to us on many occasions, and it is an easy country to feel at home in, even if you don’t speak Portuguese. Our only bad experience ever was in Sintra where an overly aggressive tuk-tuk driver railroaded us into an unpleasant and expensive ride to the Pena Palace, an over-crowded over-priced tourist hotspot well worth avoiding. In fact, perhaps it was the over-popularity of places like Sintra that had guided us this time north and away to Amarante where few people spoke English but treated us like locals anyway – which is always the way we like things to be if we can be so lucky.
We flew to Lisbon by way of London, an easy connection if you don’t mind shelling out big money for a night at the Heathrow Hilton Garden. From Lisbon we drove a few hours north on the excellent Portuguese toll highways. To get to Amarante, we turned inland past Paredes and Penafiel until we crossed Rio Tamega and eventually motored our way uphill from the river to a rented cottage with a magnificent view over the river valley.
Walking around the outdoor market in town the following day, we couldn’t help but notice how many vendors were selling penis shaped pastry. We should not have been surprised. Had I bothered to read up on my Fodor’s, I would have known that “the deeply religious town is a surprisingly racy experience – bashful visitors may blush at the sight of super-sized cakes that are unquestionably phallic in form.” These bolos (cakes) are said to be in honor of a local 13th century saint, Sao Goncalo, who was famous as a marriage matchmaker although the direct connection between the pastry and the saint remains somewhat vague. It did, however, remind me of an article I had read by Andrew Weir titled “Pride, Potency and Sin” wherein he noted that, “Celtic society, like all patriarchal societies had the penis symbol at its core.” He goes on to point out that, “The British Isles must once have been littered with phallic stones, pillars and carvings.” And Ireland, he points out, probably still has the most of them that are still standing.
So, even though were not in Ireland or another brazenly obvious phallic fanatical territory, here was a hint that we were in Celtic country.
Researchers have remarked that there were undoubtedly large Celtic settlements in many places around the Tamega River Valley.
Even the name of the river itself is most likely derived from the name of the Tamagani people, an ancient Celtic tribe of northern Portugal and Spain. Many other towns in the region also have names derived from Celtic origins. Although our goal was to ultimately make our way to the most famous Celtic settlement in the region, we decided to get away from the highways and larger towns by renting e-bikes and riding an extensive portion of the Tamega Ecotrail, an abandoned railway line that took us out of Amarante for 25 kilometres to Celorico de Basto. We biked through several small, idyllic rural villages and past backyard gardens but also through blackened forests where out-of-control wildfires had devastated the area only a few months prior. Such fires, we were told, were becoming more and more prevalent during that time of year in the region, another reminder that nowhere on the planet is immune from the ongoing crisis brought on by global warming.
The weather had been perfect for the round-trip 50 kilometres we covered that day, and aside from being a bit saddle sore and having had my first nasty encounter with stinging nettle (I thought it was wild mint), we both agreed it was the bike ride of the century for us.
For our pilgrimage to Citania de Briteiros, however, we were not so lucky. Despite the ominous weather forecast, we left out comfortable cottage and headed towards the historical city of Gumaraes on our way to the ruins. Guimarães is sometimes called the birthplace of Portugal as it was the first capital of the country in the 12th century.
Located there is the “Celtic Castle,” referencing the Celtic people who once populated the region. Despite the label, it was built in the 10th century by Countess Mumadona Dias as a defense against Norman and Moorish invasions and not really of Celtic origin at all.
As the day progressed, we sadly realized the Portuguese weather predictions were accurate. The rain poured down and the windshield wipers could not quite keep up with the onslaught, but we soldiered on, nonetheless. In the tiny village of Briteiros, the cars lined the streets with barely enough width for us to squeeze through. It was Sunday morning, after all, in this most loyally Catholic country and everyone was at church despite the deluge. Beyond the town, the road snaked up into the hills. The rain seemed to increase even more the higher we went. I was ready to pack it in and save it for another day, but my intrepid spouse (sometimes a bit more headstrong than her husband appreciated) insisted we journey on to our destination.
I was taking the narrow switchback turns at a consistent 10 kmph and wiping my sleeve on the windshield to keep open a porthole of visibility. And then, suddenly, our Google map lady’s voice announced, “You have arrived at your destination.” I pulled the car off onto the bumpy side of the road and saw nothing but forest and rain. I made a loser’s plea again that we should just call off the hopeless quest, but instead Linda jumped out into the deluge and looked around. Sure enough, she spotted a tiny sign and a narrow path on the other side of the road indicating that the site was further uphill. “Let’s just sit here and wait out the rain,” she said.
So, we did.
Or at least we gave it nearly a half hour for an abatement. No luck. The rain relented only briefly and then returned with a vengeance.
My grandmother Minnie would have said, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” although I never understood the context of that colloquial phrasing.
At that point the windows of the car were completely fogged up and it was as if we were sitting in a cloud. It was kind of like that scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet inside the car in the hold of the Titanic – only without the sex.
Well, you can only wait out the northern Portuguese rain so long before you grow restless and a little bored. Thus, it was decided by the more ambitious of us two to simply take our chances and go explore Citania de Briteiros, come hell or high water.
So, that we did. We trekked up the hill to see what there was to see.
Oddly, another car had stopped, and a small contingent of environmentally ill-prepared folks who looked like they just came from church raced up ahead of us. I assumed we were headed to an unattended site like many we’d visited in the west of Ireland, but it turned out that there was a stylish official entrance building of glass and brick. As we approached it, those who preceded us were turning around and breaking into a jog back down the hill. This did not bode well.
Inside, however, it was warm and dry, and a young woman looked at us with an unwelcoming frown. Being my father’s son, the first words out of my mouth to her were, “Do we have to pay to get in?” Clearly, she understood my English because her frown deepened and said, “Yes.” Probably the people before us had asked the same thing (only in Portuguese) and decided it wasn’t worth the money. But when I asked how much, I learned it was a mere three Euros each.
I paid the money, received an honest smile and was ready for us to venture back into ancient times when she said, “Wait. Stop. Take these.” And she handed us two large and sturdy umbrellas.
The rest as they say was pure magic.
Ken Feisel writing in Archeology Magazine (of which I hope one day to have a gift subscription) has this to say about the site: “Covering roughly 50 acres on a high outcrop with sweeping views of the Ave River Valley, a hillfort site in northwest Portugal known as Citânia de Briteiros was home to more than 1,000 people between around 200 B.C. and A.D. 300. Archaeologists have been excavating the site, some eight miles north of the medieval city of Guimarães, since the 1870s.”
So, there we were, setting out into a spider web maze of trails in the pouring rain atop Sao Romao Mountain, walking pathways that had been trodden by people of the Castro culture many centuries ago. I was still worrying about wet feet, but Linda was entranced and without having to beat me over the head with her umbrella her wonderment was infectious.
We had the place to ourselves. The mist was rising from the ground. And suddenly we were surrounded by the immaculately restored walls of round rock homes that had once housed families who lived and thrived here on this mountaintop. At first, I thought there might be a few dozen of these wonderful, curved dwellings but there were many more. This had been a very large village of not just homes but family compounds, community halls, and an acropolis surrounded by an impressive rampart. Someone had obviously done an amazing job of resurrecting Citânia from the distant past and preserving it for Celtic seekers like us. So, as the mystique of the abandoned community drew us into this most wondrous lost world, I couldn’t help but feel most appreciative of the restoration work.
And that someone had a name, as it turned out. Accord to Lonely Planet, “When archaeologist Dr. Martins Sarmento excavated the site in 1875, he discovered the foundations and ruins of more than 150 rectangular, circular and elliptical stone huts, linked by paved paths and a water-distribution system, all cocooned by multiple protective walls.”
Yes, 150 stone huts. In their day they would have had thatched roofs that sheltered the families living in those dark but perhaps cozy one room dwellings. As we ventured to the acropolis itself at the top on the ancient stone pathways, it became more apparent how well organized this community was. If it had been a clear day, we would have had a magnificent view of the Ave River Valley, but that didn’t much matter. I was trying to keep us on the designated path that had been sketched out to us when we entered the site, but it seemed to take way too much cerebral energy, so we gave up on that and allowed ourselves to wander freely. It was, to use an overused term, otherworldly.
There was just the two of us – pilgrims of sorts, escaping from the current political and social woes of the 21st century – now wandering aimlessly, soggy and joyful, giving ourselves over to what remained of a lost civilization.
I realize that sounds a tad melodramatic, but this is coming from a guy who gets easily bored by well-manicured, highly rated famous historical sites.
As far as things go, I guess you could call this place a hidden gem, an evocative location that sets the imagination wandering back into the past. Certainly, the remnants of these stone structures are impressive in their intricate architectural stonework but also, according to Ken Feisel, “The Castro people crafted elaborate gold and silver torcs, fashioned pendants featuring spiral and rosette motifs, and carved stone statues and engraved walls that decorated ritual bathing complexes.”
The park authorities tout the site as, “One of the most expressive proto-historical fortified towns in the Iberian Peninsulas” as well as “one of the most paradigmatic sites” in the history of the country. Expressive, yes, and as a paradigm, then Citânia de Briteiros is rightfully an “ideal standard.”
At the height the Celtic community’s heyday it may have had as many as 1500 residents. And then something changed, and the community must have gone into decline. Later, the pesky invading Romans arrived and occupied the site in the first century AD and it is believed that the village was ultimately abandoned in the second century.
On our way back to modern civilization, we ambled down hill to the remains a thermal bath and its symbol-laden monolith. Then we returned our umbrellas at the visitor centre and retreated to the shelter of our car.
As we cautiously drove back down Sao Ramao Mountain, the rain finally slowed down and by the time we were walking around the square at noon in Guimares, the sun was out. We had most certainly returned to our own century as the crowds filled the square. When we sat down for lunch and explained to the server that our dripping coats were the result of spending the morning hiking around Citânia de Briteiros, he claimed he had not heard of such a place and quite possibly we were pulling his leg. This made us feel all that more satisfied that we had experienced such mystical magic moments all to ourselves at such an important portal into the past that is probably most often overlooked.
Leave a Comment