São Mamede de Ribatua Village | Portugal

Hello everyone :)

The good thing about traveling in Portugal is that you can get to many places quickly (but you already know that). Even better when we go to a new place, without hours, without a rush and without a destination. We discovered that there was a beautiful viewpoint near the village where we stayed and we decided to take advantage of the end of the day to watch the sunset, which is as magnificent as the sunrise (which i already showed you here). We started walking up the road and saw a small bridge that caught our interest and we decided to turn around and explore. We found the small village of São Mamede de Ribatua, very peaceful, well maintained and once again very quiet.

We walked through the alleys, with the well-maintained houses and noticed that, once again, the animals roam freely along the street, almost one on each corner, but all very sweet and very calm. In a small square there was a large dog, with its eyes drooping like a sentry, but when we approached the first thing it did was extend its paw as if it were greeting us. We walked around the village and noticed that it was crossed by a stream, on its banks is a small garden and we immediately imagine the summers of yesteryear, with families by the river and happy children bathing in that stream.

The garden was named "Jardim das Laranjeiras", which is no coincidence as these fruit trees abound in this location. We were told that if we wanted to walk the Roman route, we should take a backpack as the locals always offer their oranges to walkers. The garden had several statues but one of them caught our attention: an elderly couple sitting with a cat on their lap. If you look closely, it's an image of complicity in which it appears that the woman is telling the man a secret, he smiles and the kitten enjoys the treats. Maybe you were telling him a joke, or perhaps telling him how much you liked him (it's up to you). Further ahead we stopped a little and met Senhor António, a resident of São Mamede since he was born, he was very happy to see us exploring and we asked him to tell us something that came to mind.

When he was little, he and his friends traveled all the hills that surrounded the village, played hide and seek in the middle of the vineyards, in the heat of the afternoon they took advantage of the shade, played in the river and the village was full of life. During a very hot month of August he began to notice some concern on his parents' faces and as a child he decided to understand what was going on and went to talk to his friends. They all said they noticed the same thing with their parents and decided to investigate. Grapes were disappearing from the vines! They then went to the oldest villager, Mr. Silvestre, to see if he could help them. Taking advantage of the fact that they were children, Mr Silvestre sat them all in a circle and told a fable that was passed down from generation to generation. There was a magical creature in the village that guarded the vineyards, Vinhasilvestre, half man and half doe, with hair like vines and eyes like grapes. He only appeared at night and whoever was lucky enough to see him would have to make and keep a promise to respect the land and the vineyards. The story passed from generation to generation but the strength of the promises that were made was less and less.

That night, Mr. António left the house and went to the vineyards in the hope of finding this magical creature, and he did. It was precisely midnight when Vinhasilvestre appeared and made Mr. António promise on behalf of the entire village that they would stop wasting the grapes and take care of what mother nature gave them. The next day António told the story to his parents who gathered the whole village in the square and since that day the vineyards have continued to produce grapes abundantly and with that the wines that we love so much.

We thank him for the story and continue to the Roman bridge.
We even brought a bag of oranges for the journey and a story to tell :)
That's all for today, I hope you liked it.

Photo by @aleister
Camera - Samsung SM-A528B
Camera - Canon EOS 600D
Lens - EFS 18-55mm
Location - Portugal

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Always remember:

Value your time, because every fraction counts, and the price of anything is the amount of life you trade for it.
May the memories of the travels be eternalized in the photographs, and may the photographs transport us back to the travels ;)