PONTE DE UCANHA - Jan-Eric Osterlund

*The medieval Ponte de Ucanha with its defensive tower. Tore is admiring the river views from the bridge*. *The parish church of Ucanha is just to the left of the tower*

Not far from Lamego (see my previous post) flows the river Varosa. Already in Roman times a bridge crossed the river at Ucanha, but in the 14^th or 15^th C it was replaced by a new medieval bridge. The bridge was donated to the Cistercian monks. In a feudal world, where river crossings were scare, the monks converted the bridge to a source of income by charging tolls for the crossings.

The abbot of Santa Maria de Salzeda’s monastery built a tower at the end of the bridge and the entrance to the monastic land to make sure that the tolls was paid by travellers. The tower was also a defensive stronghold and a storage facility for goods. You can still in my photos see the arrow slits in the tower for defence.

*Torre Fortificada de Ucanha*. *Our rented car looked so elegant I didn’t have it in me to ask Tore to move it away for my photo*

Ponte de Ucanha over the Varosa River. The canal in the left image could maybe originally have fed a little water mill or just a laundry area. You can see the irregular spans of the bridge with the middle span much wider than the others.

The bridge consists of five irregular spans over the river, with the middle span much larger than the others. The ruins of the original monastery are 3 km away from the bridge, but a more recent church has been erected in the immediate surroundings of the bridge in the village of Ucanha. The bridge is very attractive and next to it is a nice little café/restaurant, where we were the only guests on this lovely October day.