Seen from the roadside, the land around Meijapão looks like nothing much: dry stone walls, almond groves, olive trees and a few low farm buildings spread over a high plateau of schist and granite. It lies a little south of Vila Nova de Foz Côa, in the border country of north-eastern Portugal that people call Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, which translates roughly as behind the mountains. The very ordinariness is part of the charm, because the rock under those fields hides one of the great prehistoric galleries of Europe.
The Côa Valley engravings, found in the 1990s, were pecked and scratched into the schist by people living during the last Ice Age, and they were left undisturbed for millennia in a remote valley. Visitors see them at open-air sites, such as Canada do Inferno, Ribeira de Piscos and Penascosa, on guided tours that run from the museum and small local centres, and the guides explain the layers of figures that build up, one over another, over thousands of years. The sheer age is hard to hold in the mind. A horse engraved here was drawn before agriculture, before pottery, and before anyone dreamed of a Portugal.
The plateau is almond country, and the best time to ride is late February or March, when the blossom turns whole hillsides pale pink and white. The weather is a country of extremes, with winters that are sharp and summers that are severe, and the shoulders in April, May, September and October are the most comfortable. Roads on the plateau are long and gently curving, often empty, with good views over the folded hills, and a number of old fortified border towns, such as Marialva and Castelo Rodrigo, make a good objective for a day.
Fuel and food are at Vila Nova de Foz Côa, about five kilometres away, and also at Torre de Moncorvo, a bit further north. The villages here are small and shops close in the afternoon, so plan ahead. Local almonds, olive oil and cured ham are the things to buy, and a small tasca in a village is the place to try them with a glass of the local wine.