Today I went to Azêvo in Pinhel. As I'm such an unskilled driver it was a matter of life and death; but I survived. Pinhel is far, far, far away and Azêvo is even farther away. The road is full of holes and when 2 cars come in different directions, one of them has to jump into the shrubs to let the other pass.
I came across another almost abandoned village called "Aldeia" (i.e. "village"). I was told that only "one young man" (58 years old) still lives there; he was born there and is...well, let's call it the polite British way; "he has mental health issues". Imagine that. A village with no one, you think, and then someone strange lurks around the corner. The man is called Isidoro and some days, when he feels awful, he closes himself in his hut. Then, when he is on his heights, he takes out his accordion and plays in the village streets. In Aldeia there is also a "french man" (an emigrant) who sometimes comes over on holidays.
I came across another almost abandoned village called "Aldeia" (i.e. "village"). I was told that only "one young man" (58 years old) still lives there; he was born there and is...well, let's call it the polite British way; "he has mental health issues". Imagine that. A village with no one, you think, and then someone strange lurks around the corner. The man is called Isidoro and some days, when he feels awful, he closes himself in his hut. Then, when he is on his heights, he takes out his accordion and plays in the village streets. In Aldeia there is also a "french man" (an emigrant) who sometimes comes over on holidays.
Aldeia, an almost abandoned village, on top of the hill. In Azêvo everyone farms for subsistence needs, and all wait that one day someone will pass by the village and offer to buy the excess production for a good price. They wait in vain.
This is sometimes a bit irritating for me, how the people expect that someone ought to come and solve their problems, but they do not make any move. Maybe they did many moves and it did never work out and that's why they stopped struggling. Still, I think if they would pull efforts together and work as a group they could be far better off. But, of course, we are humans, and we can't or won't work in groups, right?
On my walk around Azêvo I realized that donkeys are still very much in use here. 
The donkey equipped with the self-made transportation device.
Around Azêvo the white broom is in flower. As it is in flower it's distribution becomes very clear: it is maybe the dominant species in all the abandoned and burned lands with granitic soils. It is everywhere! From Santa Comba Dão to Vilar Formoso - the "interior" starts right 50m after the sea (Litoral)...
Around Azêvo the white broom is in flower. As it is in flower it's distribution becomes very clear: it is maybe the dominant species in all the abandoned and burned lands with granitic soils. It is everywhere! From Santa Comba Dão to Vilar Formoso - the "interior" starts right 50m after the sea (Litoral)...
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