Viseu, Portugal
Latest news and stories from Sernancelhe.
The horizontal-wheel mills, always privately owned, were already enumerated and described in the survey ordered by the Marquis of Pombal after the earthquake.
Fountains are celebrated as places for meeting, sharing confidences and news, of all types: anonymous or named, simple, 'wading' or immersion, recent or centuries-old.
It is a National Monument and one of the oldest in the country. It was built next to the Paiva River by order of French monks, who were rewarded with land after helping the first king of Portugal in the Reconquista.
A cake (with a secret!) created by Laura Monteiro, available to taste at the Fornada do Dia bakery, which evokes the smell of warm bread fresh from the oven, in Sernancelhe, a land of sweets.
It is worth a trip to this bakery in Sernancelhe, the chestnut capital, to taste this cake and hear the epic story of the creation of this business by Catarina Cerqueira.
It is well worth visiting the Ex-Voto Museum at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lapa to see the 'altarpiece' painted with Our Lady and 7 figures, plus the stabbing victim recovering in bed.
The author evokes the magical hands that made the bread of Lapa, famous for over a century, as Aquilino Ribeiro recalled several times before him in 'Terras do Demo'.
In addition to Father Baldomero, Aquilino also evokes Father Francisco Pinto Ferreira, Chaplain of the Lapa Sanctuary and Director of the Lapa College, which the writer attended.
In the mythical village of Lapa, beyond the sanctuary and the Jesuit college, people talk about the 3-spout fountain from 1734, which quenched the thirst of pilgrims, students, priests, shepherds, and the general public.
How the village of Forca was renamed Santo Estêvão and the niche of the Lord of Miracles is recalled, featuring the 'alminha' (a small roadside devotional image) painted in the nineteenth century by local artist Carlos Augusto Massa of Sernancelhe.
Xico Lucena, a sculptor of the land, evokes Nature by carving a chestnut leaf to be admired on a hillside along the road to Sernancelhe.
