Might I call this ‘pearly gates’ hospitality, where brilliantly warm hosts offer you a glass of chilled rosé, on arrival – made with Touriga Nacional grapes, plucked from vines you can see in the near-distance – as you park your weary carcass on one of their sumptuous sofas, in the grandest of reception rooms? Delightful dinner aromas permeate the tranquil air, as ‘Socks’ the dog rests his hopeful and hairy muzzle on your knee, looking for an opportunistic pat. I can only be in the deeply convivial company of Hugh and Jane Forestier-Walker at the Quinta dos Três Rios, near Viseu.
My body knows I’m back in their excellent company, as my senses respond joyfully to the delicious and lovingly-created goodies created here by the British pair, who arrived in 2005, buying on sight this once-ruined and shuttered Georgian-esque mansion, now painstakingly renovated and receiving guests from all corners of the globe. My mind and spirit soon catch up, blessed and eased as they are by the sights and sounds of wind in the trees, river beach waters, and busy animals – both wild and domesticated.
Life is good here, in a part of Portugal I, and most likely most others, do not know well. Viseu, as a city, may have come to your attention, perhaps best known for its Dão wine associations and growing reputation as a foodie destination (with Mesa de Lemos topping its must-visit list, whose grounds we drove through and helipad we visited with the luxurious Lexus that Caetano Coimbra lent us for a try-out). But as well as being a 2,500 year-old garden city, rich in history and culture, ‘Viseu Dão Lafões’ is also an administrative division of Portugal, in what you could say is the heart of the country, with over a quarter of a million inhabitants.
We happen to be in the Tondela municipality of this properly Portuguese Comunidade Intermunicipal, hallmarked by granite, grapevines and grounded grandeur. Not far away, the N2, Portugal’s ‘Route 66’, winds its way from North to South or vice-versa, offering tourists a leisurely and rich insight into the Portuguese past, constituting a 450-mile spinal road trip between Chaves and the Algarve.
The building has a remarkable history, built, Hugh told me, by a British textile maker Charles Syder, who came this way to set up a Portuguese operation back in the 19th century. This would account for the Georgian proportions of the dwelling, which was constructed next to his river-powered factory that was for many years the economic heart of this quiet and seemingly incongruous industrial site. Guests can be forgiven for thinking they are luxuriating in an English Cotswolds country home, as much as enjoying central Portugal’s bucolic splendour, such is the imprint left by Syder, who became great friends with Tomás Ribeiro, local politician, journalist, poet and writer.
Hugh and Jane are continuing with Syder’s great Anglo-Portuguese legacy, having embedded themselves into local life admirably, as well as maintaining a certain British panache that enchants B&B guests as well as volunteers who help run and maintain the operation that has the Quinta near-self-sufficient in food, bathed in wine, and open to global visitors. During my stay, I mixed with Aussies, Kiwis, Venezuelans and Brazilians, if my memory serves me correctly, which was in fairness, challenged by Hugh’s own fortified wine!
Before coming to Portugal, these Quinta guardians ran a much-loved smokery that served an international clientele, but dogged by “red tape, onerous legislation and the UK rat-race”, gave it all up. One day, recalls Hugh, “a fax spewed out from my machine at the office, giving an outline description of Quinta dos Três Rios.”
“Some ten days later, December 2004, we flew out to see the property and knew this was it!” Hugh recounted, with the glint in his eye and joie de vivre in his voice, that I so love about him. “Broke in on the Friday, shook hands with the owner on the Monday!!”
I’m so glad they did, giving new life to a historically precious building and site that had become a wine-producing adega, but had failed to stay afloat in Portugal’s economically tougher times. I was pleased to see that Hugh’s food smoking legacy was continuing in some way too, as I tucked into some bacon, which adorned a hand-crafted pizza on the alfresco lunch table, nestling in smoked tomato sauce, next to home-produced olives, with of course chilled white wine from the nearby and rescued vines.
This is the best of all worlds. Rural and peaceful as you like, but with the afore-mentioned Michelin-starred restaurant across the valley. Secluded and near self-sufficient in a crazy world, but with small town amenities only minutes away, and cutting-edge health and educational facilities 20 minutes away in the city of Viseu. You can hear a heron screech in the forested river frontage, as you tap on a fibre-connected laptop; in touch with all the world, yet in one of your own, under the vast blue Portuguese sky.
Porto and its airport are just 90 minutes away for international flights and the best of Portuguese urban attractions. Oh, and Viseu has a runway too, with domestic flights, for anyone looking for a quicker connection than the N2 or IP3 highways allow.
Quinta dos Três Rios has an eco-pista nearby, which (in case you don’t know, and why would you?) is a disused railway line that is now a cycle path, that its operators say, at 49 kilometres in length, is “not only the longest Ecopista in Portugal, but probably the most beautiful as well”. The Linha do Dão, as it’s known, was until 1988 a train track between Santa Comba Dão and Viseu, which reopened in 2011, as a bike and walking path called the Ecopista do Dão.
This is an enviable and attractive lifestyle, a way of being that Hugh and Jane have wrought with their bare hands back from dilapidation. A life, which you might expect them to savour for the rest of their days. However, in an irony of the greatest proportions and a funny-old-life plot-twist, the Forestier-Walkers want to travel – just like the many guests and volunteers that they have hosted for the past near-20 years.
It’s their turn to be looked after and delighted. It’s their turn to enjoy heavenly hospitality and extraordinary experiences, just like they have offered countless visitors to Viseu, whose grateful and gleeful messages fill the guest book by the grand chestnut entrance to the farmhouse of the three rivers.
And who knows, maybe it’s your turn to pick up and run with the baton of Quinta dos Três Rios. Although, given that Hugh and Jane have done all the hard work, maybe it’ll be more of a gentle stroll in Viseu’s life-affirming, life-enhancing hills?
Take a look at: https://www.brightmangroup.com/imovel/casa-senhorial-na-zona-vinhanteira-do-dao/21287843
By Carl Munson
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
