Santa Iria Zone

[IdleRich]

I dunno if this is interesting to anyone... but some pictures of local wilderness here. In the town I live there is this weird section in the middle which is blocked off by massive 2.5m foot stones walls (maybe 0.5m thick) on all sides, enclosing a space that is roughly like a circle of 3km diameter or maybe a square of 2.5km per side. I've always wondered what was inside it cos the walls are totally inpenetrable, although at some points, cos of the way that the land everywhere is so hilly you can see bits of greenery and some trees and stuff. Obviously there isn't a secret laboratory doing horrible experiments etc cos lots of people live in apartment blocks that are tall enough to see into it, but still I've always wanted to know what was in there.
Anyway, the other day we were walking through this overgrown valley that is near to the wall, there are several paths across it and this one is quite hard to spot at the entrance so we have rarely taken it. We realised that there was a spot visible from this path where the wall had tumbled down and it would be possible to beat your way through the undergrowth and get over the wall. So we had it in the back of our mind to put on some tough boots etc and see what was on the other side of the wall one day... we did it today. Obviously there was nothing especially exciting on the other side, and it was so overgrown that we could only get so far... maybe with an edged stick to cut your way through we might have got further, one day will try and do that. But for me anyway, there was some satisfaction in finally getting past this huge grey wall blocks you wherever you go in this part of town.
Some photos anyway

This is the big fucking wall, taken from the overgrown valley that you are allowed in



Path through the valley



Hole in the wall spotted from the path

 

[IdleRich]

Climbed over the wall (there was a rat or maybe a rabbit I guess ran away from my foot as I started climbing)

Looking to the right on the forbidden side



Looking to the left



We pushed a bit further in anyhow



Saw some weird abandoned things that reminded me of Stalker

 

[IdleRich]

More Stalker/Zone type stuff



And more I guess



Eventually we managed to get to a more open bit and you could see a bit further





The second line of undergrowth and thickly grown trees was too much to get through without more equipment though so we went back.

 

[luka]

Weird. Maybe it's contaminated land.

 

[IdleRich]

I reckon it's more likely owned by some rich guy... or possibly the church cos the wall backs on to the church and the posh house built for the priest. Dunno why it's abandoned but it's quite common for houses to just get left to fall down and be reclaimed by nature so why not land? I thought there would be some olive trees though at least... maybe further in I guess.

 

[IdleRich]

Again, more of interest to me than to anyone else perhaps but I looked on google maps... the area I've marked with the red line is totally blocked off, guess we went through the wall a little bit up and left from the bottom right hand corner where there are all those trees. It looks as though if we could break out of that tree section then maybe could explore further, but I suppose that picture is quite old and things are a bit more overgrown now.

 

[yyaldrin]

maybe you can try and take a metal detector next time when you go there? or ask the municipality how that area is defined and for what use?

 

[IdleRich]

Actually, there is a kind of fb group for Santa Iria that normally just shares old photos (bits of land that now have apartment blocks, class photos from 1982 etc) and reminiscences but maybe I could ask there. I'm normally a completely passive member, but I'm trying to brush up on my Portuguese (written/read - spoken is still horrible) so maybe I could get involved. I just fear that I might be breaking some ancient taboo just by speaking of it... but that's probably just from too many films, books, tv series.... in fact all of popular culture I guess.

 

[Murphy]

Again, more of interest to me than to anyone else perhaps but I looked on google maps... the area I've marked with the red line is totally blocked off, guess we went through the wall a little bit up and left from the bottom right hand corner where there are all those trees. It looks as though if we could break out of that tree section then maybe could explore further, but I suppose that picture is quite old and things are a bit more overgrown now.

View attachment 3313

looks like part of a larger enclosure from the map, if you tally up your red zone to make it rugby ball in shape with a slightly off-axis, taking the Frutaria & Napas salvador as north/south.

in Britain these can be good clues for hill-forts beyond a certain elevation, Santa might be a religious centre but without any archaeology or dates anything typed would be spurious, it's enough to get out right now

View attachment 3339

 

[IdleRich]

It's kinda hard to see on that map but the green bit below the red line is a really steep valley, you can walk along it by the paths but you really can't walk perpendicular to the paths cos it's super step and covered in undergrowth, filled with snakes and rats no doubt. So the red bit is basically higher ground, though not the highest, the whole town (in fact this whole part of Portugal really) is covered in really mad hills.
My guess is that this fenced off bit of ground belonged to the church which you can see at the top of the enclosed bit and where there are also several smaller enclosures made out of the same stone walls, also there is a huge house there next to the church which I guess once upon a time was owned by the main guy... Mr Santa Iria if you will. But that's all a guess. There are a couple of other big mansion type things too I suppose but they don't seem to have any land.
There is in fact a castle here but it's on the other side of town, it is also on the side of the hill, dates from 14th or 15th century I believe.