beat the brochure

Up in the eastern part of North Portugal near the border with Spain, you’ll find the Coa Valley and Foz Coa, the 30 sites of ancient rock art some of which are up to 24,000 years old! Foz Coa follows the River Coa Valley and is probably best accessed via the city Vila Nova de Foz Coa which is where you’ll find this archaeological park’s main office; the rock art site Canada do Inferno is accessed from here.

Alternative towns which are close to the open sites are Muxagata for access to Ribeira de Piscos and Castelo Melhor to visit Penascosa.

There’s nothing quite like a cheap holiday in Portugal sourcing ancient rock art to make you feel like you’re getting up close to real history. You need to visit the Rock art sites via one of their visitor centres who will arrange a place in a four-wheel drive for you – they need about a week’s notice and you can reserve a place online.

A romantic trip

The romantic way to get there is to take the single track train from Porto at the mouth of the Douro which snakes along the river’s edge crossing from one side to another and passing 5 massive dams. But you might find a hire car more practical, unless you’re prone to map reading arguments of course!

Saving the drawings for posterity

In the early 90’s it was a local wine maker who fought the cause to stop a dam being built in the Coa Valley and obscuring the rock art. There are tens of thousands of Palaeolithic sites of rock drawing in the Valley with additions through the ages. Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has had some input from EU Funding for the park.

Primitive art through the ages

Getting to the sites is often over rocky terrain – another good reason for a guide and that 4 x 4. The ‘art’ is often difficult to decipher just looking like a lot of overlapping lines. This is again where your guide will be really helpful. With their help you should be able to make out drawings of fish, bulls, horses and ibex from the Palaeolithic scratchings.

Stone Age ‘scribblers’ added two or three heads to their creatures to give them a sense of movement, whilst Bronze Age and Iron Age art added human figures in motion. Of course as you might expect there are some depictions of intimate scenes which are presented as fertility symbols of course! There are Roman engravings too and crosses and grails from the Middle Ages; even a steam engine crossing a bridge which has been signed and dated (1944) by the artist.

The Foz Coa Archaeological Park is well worth a visit!