Off the beaten track

We decided to do a morning tour of the Schist villages in the mountains about 30 minutes from Coimbra. Our Portuguese guide, Alfredo, was delightful. Whilst the tour can accomodate up to 10 people, we were the only ones. 

There are 27 Schist villages across four different regions of Portugal. The major feature of these little villages is that the homes were traditionally made from shale - readily available in the mountains of Portugal. The original residents lived a very simple,  frugal and self sufficient life and isolated. They had no roads and no means of transport. The villages are about 500 years old,  but interest in the area only started in the 1990s when the tourism potential of the villages was realised. The homes are now privately owned and many of those that have been restored are rented out on a weekly basis to people seeking the calm and tranquility that being in nature can provide. Hiking is very popular here. We had time to visit 4 of the villages on Lousã Mountain. 

The ride through the mountains was interesting to say the least. Alfredo obviously knows the roads well and in his 4WD was comfortable travelling along the curving mountain roads at speed. Adrian later told me that, in the back seat, he was bracing himself against whatever he could and hanging on! That said, it was a very enjoyable and interesting tour. We were lucky enough to see a mother roe deer and her twins along the side of the road as well as an eagle and a squirrel. One of the villages has only two Portuguese couples living a simple existence as goatherds. So we also saw a lot of goats. Another village has only one permanent resident, whilst another has only three. 

House that Alfredo wanted to buy but missed out on. Sold for 65,000 euro.

We have noticed that in both Greece and Portugal there are many gum trees and other eucalypts. Here in Portugal, we have seen large plantations of them.  Alfredo was telling us how they planted lots of gum trees (of a type we are not familiar with - tall and fairly thin with a straight trunk) because they are fast growing and are useful for reducing soil erosion.  They are used for paper manufacture.  However, it is the acacia that is causing a problem - they have become invasive and are taking over from the native flora.  Eucalypts are also bad in forest fires, as we Australians are well aware.

On my To Do list for Coimbra was to get a haircut, always an interesting and challenging adventure in a foreign country! I did some research, as is my want, and chose the one nearest to our accommodation - Seven Art in Love. I just rocked up and was told (with body language) to take a seat. At the time the hairdresser who welcomed me was cutting a young boy's hair - giving him a crew-cut using clippers. Then it was my turn. First the basin treatment with a cold water shampoo. As it was a hot day and no AC, she probably thought she was doing me a favour.  I was ok with that. I had practised an important phrase - naõ taõ curto (not too short) - which I trotted out as I took my seat. I also showed her a photo of me and pointing to it said "comme ça". Why I trotted out my French in a Portuguese hair salon still bemuses me. 

Maybe my pre-prepared and practised Portuguese phrase was misunderstood because she cranked up the clippers and started shaving the back of my head! All I could do was put my faith in the hands of the cabeleireira and hope that she left me with some hair. Suffice to say I was pretty happy with the result and even happier with the price - 15 euro for shampoo, cut and blow dry. I certainly won't need another haircut for a while. On returning home and telling Adrian he commented "it does a look a bit French" ...hmm, I wonder why!

That evening, our last in Coimbra we attended another Fado evening. Fado in Coimbra is quite different to that in Lisbon. As it is a university town, some of the songs are not as melancholy and several reflect the bucolic student life.  The male singer, a tenor, had an amazing operatic voice and the instrumentalists, again extremely proficient musicians. We were mesmerised by the music. They deserved their standing ovation at the end of the evening. A very interesting difference - female singers are not allowed in Coimbra, only males.

Coimbra at night with the university at the highest point