" Historic Villages"

CHAVÃES
Inhabitants: 372 /   Area: 994 /  Tabuaço Distance: 5.5 km

  Previous l Next

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

”It has walnut, has potato,
Many hunting goes away,
The Chavães seat kills me
In the sweet Pipa´s Fountain”
Tabuaço marbel
 

This is an essentially rural parish that has always grown potatoes e mostly grains. Chestnut production is considerable and after the picking season there follows an old tradition “The Magusto” (fire to roast chestnuts) Feast, baked chestnuts on a bonfire, at the churchyard, the feast gathers everyone around the fire and at flames rhythm go drinking and singing. The ancient vestiges display in the Pillory of the XVII century and the people’s oven, symbol of the local community life. Taverns are obligatory stops for a trip to the past.
 

 Situated in one of the prettiest and impressive mountains of Tabuaço, this village seems to lean against the mountain, taking shelter from the North winds. It resembles a Biblical landscape. Cattle are grazing in marshes.

Cattle feed on the mud. Women go by riding mules. A man with a sack hanging from  his shoulders follows by foot. Other women wash clothes in the Chestnut Fountain where there are mills out of usage. A roman panelled stone with inscripted on a wall. Buttlers keep the ancient costume of serving jeropiga to all, as if there were an old  promisse or a banquet.

There has been village charters as the Pillory on Plaza Square attests, dated of 1698 and the memory of a long gone jailhouse. But, in the XIII century, the Azevedos from Paredes, has given it its charter. There are “Little Souls” niches, a Cross of Centennials . The Our Lady of Miracles Chapel, at the village’s end, with pilgrimage every August. The Mother Church raised on the hillside upfront, full with new houses nowadays, carved in good ashlars, present a  curious architectonic feature.