Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

Vila Real is not a fortunate place. The traveller is bound to offer better explanations if he is not to arouse the hostility of the natives, so unfairly discredited by his words. But honestly, what more can one say about a place which has to the east Mateus with its manor house of obvious beauty; and to the west Marão; to the south the valley of Corgo, and parallel to it, a valley which flows not with water but with wines? A traveller who fetches up here is bound to be distracted by pondering on all that surrounds him. But there's a further reason for this traveller's responsiveness to the call of the North: "Come! Come! " The call is so imperative that, on awakening, he suddenly becomes agitated and, responding to a deep sense of urgency, in two bounds reaches the staircase. No gold mine or clandestine assignation awaits him, but the morning is certainly glorious, with huge, high, white clouds, and a sun gone crazy.

A few kilometres on from Vila Real lies Vilarinho de Samardã. You must pardon the traveller his weaknesses: coming from so far away and finding so close at hand illustrious sights such as the ancient palace flanked by two equally fine valleys; and the chance of voraciously devouring one poor village after another for the sole reason that Camilo Castelo Branco walked and lived there. Some of us go to Mecca; others to Jerusalem; many to Fátima; the traveller makes his pilgrimage to Samardã. That was the route followed by the young madcap, whether on horseback or in a phaeton. In his own words, it was in Vilarinho he passed "the earliest and only happy years of my youth", and in Samardã he noted the case of a wolf who survived five bullets and still finished dining on the second half of a sheep.