Jane Wheeler's Blog 2013 November

portugal is only two hours from here

but it’s very obvious that you are no longer in Spain when you arrive in a pretty mountain village like Penha Garcia

this charming and decrepit stone house turned out to be almost completely collapsed at the back; Manfred’s dream renovation project.

flowers like roses and pelargoniums add to the colour and the doors are all brightly painted. it was olive harvest here, and pensionistas were all out picking olives with calm deliberation.

the geology is awe-inspiring – this is a syncline, layers of deep-sea floor from four hundred and eighty million years ago tipped up into dramatic formations. this is the side of the gorge, and you can see the old water-mill buildings at the bottom.

we climbed up first, to the tiny castle perched at the very top of the crag

then all the way down into the gorge

the watermills are restored and the caretaker will show you round, one of the millstones is working

when the water has finished turning the water wheel it is carried around the side of the gorge in a rock-cut channel, on the right of this photo

the most spectacular fossils are uncovered in every layer of sea floor. they are thought to be trilobite tunnels in the sea mud. they look absolutely extraordinary.

then all the lower rocks are covered in beautiful lichens

these green and lime ones are the most common

the mill leat ends up in a spectacular waterfall

the next stop was even more awe-inspiring, the inselberg (an isolated stump of granite sticking up several hundred metres from the plain) of Monsanto

the village is partly constructed of built granite blocks and partly of the enormous granite boulders which balance all over this crag

we climbed up the steep streets towards the castle

amongst the chimneys at the very top are stone-built pig pens

no longer used but very neat

and one old lady came up to feed her chickens kept in a pen up here – what a view!

almost at the top are a romanesque church and bell tower, of the most beautiful rugged simplicity. Alfonso 111 had chased out the moors by 1200 so this must just post-date that

the church is roofless but the strong carving and the plain interior survive in perfect condition

there are many stone coffins around, the topsoil must have washed away

the castle was given to the templars in the 1200’s, then later to another order, that of santiago. like the village, the immense boulders are included in its construction – it looks completely impregnable. attackers must have thought so as there seems to be no record of any battle or seige here.

a romanesque arch at the entry into the first courtyard

the most stupendous views from the battlements

and sneaky arrow/gun slots

in this main courtyard there is a big well, which is still full of water. in fact the castle’s eventual ruin came from a self-administered accident with the gunpowder store after the peninsular war. it was severely damaged and then one of the wall boulders collapsed.

on the way down we discovered a secret garden amongst the boulders

a fine place to live, but we thought that most of the houses are probably weekend places. this part of portugal is wonderfully peaceful, you feel you are in another age.

Roger and Gabi invited us over to their mountain-side finca for an olive-picking day. the finca faces east, the view is towards Miajadas and across more and more ridges of sierra, over towards Guadelupe

they have about 400 olive trees, and a few productive orange trees, a pomegranate tree,

and a big bay tree that lives in the crack of the all- the-year-round spring – it feeds their little plunge pool too.

we pulled the olives off the branches onto the nets laid out on the ground with our hands and little rakes, but it needed several nets laid out on the terrace below as well, as the olives tended to bounce downhill.

and ones we couldn’t reach were vibrated off by Roger’s machine – Eddie Scissor Hands – which sent them pinging all over the place.

mostly though it was a gentle activity, made a little precarious by slippery nets and narrow terraces

the olives were gathered up off the nets into baskets

and by mid-afternoon there were enough picked for the next day’s pressing, and a relaxed and copious lunch of spicy meaty eastern european soup was provided. we sat around on the terrace in the autumn sunshine until the sun slid down behind the sierra.

the next afternoon we assembled to watch the process of producing extra virgin olive oil. Roger and Gabi have quite basic machinery, enough to make about 75 litres of oil, for their own use, and to give as precious christmas presents to friends and family.

the olives are sorted and put into buckets of warm water; if everything is kept warm during the process it helps to extract the oil. then they are crushed in this fearsome and very noisy machine; breaking the pits is what makes the noise.

the mash that results is put into the mats on the press; traditionally these were made of esparto grass, but now they are plastic. (old photos of poor Spanish peasants show many of them plaiting this coarse fibre for all sorts of uses, including baskets, and the mats for olive presses)

when the filled mats are nearly at the top of the press, a wooden board is put on top, and a couple of blocks, and then the winding tackle and lever. as the lever is wound round the central screw the pressure extracts the oil, with a lot of water.

as the weight of the mats increases, water starts to flow first, due to this slight pressure

the oil stays on top and the water is siphoned off

the mats are sprayed with hot water to keep everything warm

at first it is easy to turn the lever, but by the end a lot of leverage and force is needed.

at last, the beautiful green liquid can be scooped off the top with a jug. what I can’t show you is the smell – a very strong smell of olives and oil, though not that wonderful floral smell which the pure oil gives off from the bottle – really almost an oil-paint smell.

and when it is done, out comes the rye vodka ….. well earned after a hard days work.

portugal – greenery and colour, mountain villages, geology and history

olive harvest

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