Day 7 - Some VERY old rocks!

 

So today was very unexpectedly interesting! Certainly not what I would think I would be looking at on a visit to wine country. We went to the Coa Valley Interpretation Museum obviously at the Coa Valley, which is a valley near the Douro.

Before we went we had a Portuguese BBQ on the top deck of the boat. Very festive with the staff all casual, Portuguese music and lots of red Sangria. This is our tight-six eating our way to obesity.

Their idea of a BBQ included sardines, pork slices, pork ribs, sausages and chicken pieces Some spicy ones for the likes of Dave, and many, many salads similiar to ours.

While we were eating the boat went through a lock with a waterfall coming down. It was a crazy way to eat lunch!

On our way to the Coa Valley we went through a little town perched high on the hills and were told about Portuguese immigrant houses which are flash houses built by people who want a summer house to come to to stay and visit their relatives or rent out etc. It was obvious guessing which ones were such.

This is not a wine growing region, as the ground is full of schist/slate so it was used in the past for mining slate to use to make houses and walls.

We are driving along the ridges of the hills and looking down to spectactular views below.

 

This museum is set on the edge of a cliff face at the edge of a village, and is the most modern building I have been into since arriving in Portugal! It won architectual awards for its design which was to blend into the landscape, so all brown. And what is it all about I hear you ask? Well - as Dave has been known to say quite a few times on this trip - OLD ROCKS!

This place in the Coa Valley has been made a UNESCO World Heritage site due to a discovery in the 80's by a geologist who was surveying for a dam to be built for power. He found lots of cave rock drawings on large upright boulders made of schist sticking up from the ground. These were found to be from 35,000 plus BC and done by cave men showing animals. There was a big hue and cry about whether to carry on with the dam or preserve these drawings. It divided the nation apparently, with the rocks winning out. 

Below is where they found many of them below and around the area the museum was built on. It is called and 'interpretation' museum as the rocks could not be moved and needed to be protected from the likes of nosey tourists, so what they did was get large chunks of slate and replicated the drawings for us to see! Very clever. Acturally it was so interesting believe it or not!

View from the edge of the museum where the rocks were found.

We had a great guide, who started with showing how the early man made weapons and chisels, etc that were used to make the drawings. Below she is demonstrating a spear thrower, showing how ideas adapted at the time to improve the results re. hunting etc

Using rocks, sticks, bit of slate to make tools by the stone-age men.

Then we toured through looking at the replica drawings.

Explaining how the drawings were drawn over a 1000 years - mostly over the top of each other. It is thought they were used as a type of communication to show other early man groups what animals were found there - like a billboard. The types of animals evovled too over those years.

This was a map showing how cave men moved around often depending on the weather and animals and seasons.

The dots show where some of the rocks were found and with what animal on it.

I was fascinated at how they could pull out the different animals from what looked like a mass of kids scribbles.

So all and all a day of many different experiences and I loved it!