Even before spring officially arrives, a spectacle announces its arrival in Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro: the almond trees in bloom. White and pink patches cover the slopes, contrasting with the dark schist and the still-grey olive groves of winter. It's a visual promise that something good is on the way—and that "something" goes far beyond beauty.

There are places where time crystallizes. The Olive Oil Museum Centre - Solar dos Cortiços, in the village of Cortiços, is one of those rare spaces where we can literally touch the past. It's not an ordinary museum — it's a time capsule that preserves, intact, the way our great-grandparents transformed olives into liquid gold.

Há algo de especial quando se juntam dois produtos que carregam séculos de história nas suas gotículas douradas. O mel e o azeite de Trás-os-Montes não são apenas alimentos — são testemunhos vivos de uma relação profunda entre o homem e a terra, entre o trabalho paciente das abelhas e o ciclo milenar das oliveiras.

Epiphany, or Three Kings' Day, celebrated on January 6th, marks the official end of the Christmas festivities in Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro.

After December closes the harvest cycle and celebrates the new olive oil at the table, January arrives in the olive grove bringing the deep cold of the Transmontano winter. The olive grove breathes slowly, enveloped in the silence of dormancy, while in the villages the ancestral traditions of the winter cycle keep alive the connection between land, memory and community. This is the month of necessary rest — but also of the invisible work that takes place inside each olive tr

When December arrives in Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, two renewals happen simultaneously: the arrival of the new year and the completion of the harvest that gives us new olive oil. Both carry with them a profound symbolism of new beginnings, prosperity, and continuity—values ​​that these lands have preserved for centuries and that remain alive in the villages, olive presses, and tables of Trás-os-Montes.

When December 26th dawns in the villages of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, the bonfires from the previous evening still smolder in the squares, but the region is preparing for one of the most generous and communal traditions of the Portuguese winter: the São Estêvão festivities.

The bonfires and the young men are the two pillars of the most authentic Christmas in Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. This is not folklore — they are living manifestations of an ancestral memory, where fire purifies, the mask liberates, and the community is renewed.