Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Portugal, April 24, 2025 (Lusa) - A literary train will link Porto's S. Bento Station to Pocinho, in Vila Nova de Foz Côa, on a journey that combines poetry, music and the heritage of the Douro, at the opening of the Côa Festival.
Scheduled to depart from S. Bento Station at 09:20 on 30 April, the first of four days of the Vila Nova de Foz Côa Poetry and Music Festival, the Literary Train is due to arrive in Pocinho at around 12:40.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, the councillor for Culture in the Vila Nova de Foz Côa municipality, Ana Filipe, said that the aim is for this train to be seen as a privileged vehicle for the initiative, on a journey to Vila Nova de Foz Côa, where music and literature are the "ingredients" of the festival.
"Throughout the journey, 22 students from the Matosinhos Ballet Theatre School will go from carriage to carriage reciting and distributing poems to the sound of music," said the mayor.
Ana Filipe recalled being on the Literary Train in 2024, and "it was an interesting and enriching experience for those who were travelling or were taken by surprise along the way".
"Regular passengers and tourists were amazed by the initiative, which, combined with the landscape, has a unique spectacle," she said.
The trip has a marked tourist component, as it crosses two World Heritage Sites classified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): the Alto Douro Wine Region and the Côa Valley Rock Art.
This initiative is the responsibility of the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa and CP—Comboios Portugal. It is part of the Poetry and Music Festival programme, which will be held in this town in the district of Guarda from 30 April to 3 May.
This year's Poetry and Music Festival will honour the Trás-os-Montes poet A.M. Pires Cabral and the conductor and composer António Victorino d'Almeida.
Authors Ana Zanatti, Fernando Pinto do Amaral, and Rui Lage, actors Rui Spranger and Ana Couto, and musicians composer and bassist Alejandro Erlich-Oliva and "cantautora" Mafalda Veiga are also on the programme.
According to Jorge Maximino, the initiative's director and founder, this literary festival, the oldest in the country, was created in 1984 and "remains an open space for the poetic word and artistic creation, one of its essential premises".
Throughout the festival, Snob—Livraria e Editora will organise the usual Poetry Book Fair.
The festival will occupy the Foz Côa Cultural Centre's small and large auditoriums, as well as the Hall, where the book fair takes place and where the artists António Barros and Augusta Villalobos will install.
The "Pinguim Fora de Portas" session will recreate on stage the habit of the "Monday readings" at the Pinguim space in Porto, which has been spreading poetry to the public for over 30 years.
In the area of performance, the Balleteatro students will perform poetry on the streets, in places such as the Market, Rua de S. Miguel, Praça do Tablado, and Praça do Município.
In the large auditorium of the Foz Côa Cultural Centre, students from the municipality will perform the poetic show "Recado aos amigos distantes" (Message to distant friends).
SOMA organises the Foz Côa Poetry and Music Festival - Associação de Arte e Cultura, in partnership with the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa.
All the sessions and shows are free, subject to capacity.
FYP/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
