"This is Alentejo - but not quite Alentejo. It has touches of the Beiras, others of the Ribatejo. It is less flat, less ample, more varied.
... This is Alentejo - but an Alentejo contaminated by the green and the freshness of the north, an Alentejo less harsh and also less peopled, less well known.
... Nowadays, when urban lives are filled with ornament and bauble, when cities are corrupt in their colour and neon, when individuality tends to stand out for its exoticism, the Alentejo acts as a counterpoint. It has a restful simplicity. It breathes quietude.
Quietude. It’s not slowness , it’s not silence, and it’s particularly not prejudice: it’s the feeling that time doesn’t have to be in a hurry. That this people bears a hard but proud life and knows - from ancient wisdom - that it’s not worth being in a hurry, that time is part of eternity."
José Manuel Fernandes
Publisher: Maurício Abreu / Região de Turismo de São Mamede
Project and production of the book: Maurício Abreu
Photography by Maurício Abreu
Text by José Manuel Fernandes
Design by Vasco Ferreira
English version by Peter F. Ingham
1st edition: April 1999
ISBN: 972-95897-4-7
Size: 30,5 x 22 cm; 88 pages
176 colour photographs.
