This week’s travel dream: Walking in the footsteps of sheep

For years, I thought of transhumance as an ancient tradition that I’d never glimpse being practiced in today’s Europe, said Judith Fein in The Boston Globe. The word describes the seasonal movement of livestock from summer grazing spots in the mountains to the lowlands where they winter, and I’d seen “remnants of it” here and there—a beaten trail, a shepherd’s hut in the highlands. I figured that only through luck would I witness such a migration, but “little did I suspect that a small town in Portugal had maintained the ancient tradition and that visitors could go there in September to be a part of it.”

Fundão, located on a plain beside two mountain ranges, has held a transhumance festival for the past eight years. “Few people know about it,” so the event retains a “local, authentic” feel, offering outsiders a glimpse of a “nature-based, communal way of life that today is rare.” To launch the festivities, some 100 sheep are led through the city’s cobblestoned streets early in the morning, accompanied by “the world’s only registered and authenticated group of chocalheiros”—a chorus of men who create a hypnotic racket by clanging large sheep bells that they wear on leather sashes. “Portuguese city folks” join them for the march’s last leg, a hike over a small mountain that includes stops at tiny villages to glad-hand the locals.

Musicians greet the procession when it reaches Alpedrinha, a town of 18th-century houses where “most of the abodes are decorated” and double as shops or cafés, offering “such specialties as spiced black-hued sausages,” cheeses, and jams. The seasonal return of cows, goats, and sheep means for locals the return of wool and fresh dairy products. But that simple tradition can be enough to bring some visitors to tears. “I feel such a connection to my ancestors, the land, and a tradition that was lost in the mists of time,” a woman from a larger city told me. “I loathe the idea of going back to the modern world.”

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At Fundão’s O Alambique de Ouro hotel (hotelalambique.com), doubles start at $68 a night, including breakfast. Festival information can be found at visitcentro.com.