Steam train ride to the tallest Christmas tree in Portugal

The fever to have the tallest tree in Christmas has not only reached Spainbut also to Portugal, where the town of Ermesinde is proud to have the largest in the country, 55 meters high, which can be reached by an almost 100-year-old steam train.

Located in the metropolitan area of ​​Porto, this town of just over 39,000 inhabitants has hosted the largest Christmas tree in Portugal for several years, which attracts visitors from all over the Portuguese territory and abroad, such as Spaniards and English.

Compared to the 55-meter height of the Ermesinde tree, which is not a pine but a structure with lights, the tallest in Porto and Lisbon are around 30 meters.

Many of the visitors who come from outside travel the 12 kilometers that separate Ermesinde from Porto on an almost hundred-year-old steam train, which the Comboios de Portugal company (Trains of Portugal) has put into operation for the second consecutive year on the occasion of the Christmas festivity.

This historic train does not run daily, it only operates on December 16, 17, 23 and 30, and January 6 and 7, so it is practically full on each of the four trips it makes each day. .

The Mexican Bernado and Cris, his Portuguese partner, have taken advantage of their vacation in Portugal to put their 4 and 2-year-old children in this transportation relic.

Cris explains to EFE that they came because his brother had signed up and asked them if they wanted to go with him. “And what better than just the day before Christmas”Bernardo adds.

They didn’t know about the tallest Christmas tree in Portugal until they saw the destination of the train, whose steam locomotive 0186, built in 1925 in Germany, is what arouses the most curiosity among passengers.

Traveling aboard the carriages is like returning to the past, with its wooden benches in the tourist class and other padded ones in the preferred class, while you hear the whistle of the locomotive that leaves a line of steam in its wake.

Manuela, a retiree from Porto who travels with her granddaughters aged 9 and 5, is not surprised by the experience, since, as she tells EFE, she traveled like this in her youth.

“I came with my granddaughters so they could experience how people used to travel,” Manuela details, under the gaze of the two girls, Beatriz and Catarina, who wear Christmas maple horns on their heads.

The journey, which lasts just under half an hour, is enlivened by two actors dressed as elves who distribute lollipops and cookies to children and adults.

Once in Ermesinde, it is enough to walk five minutes from the station to reach the Urban Park, where the Christmas tree is installed, which turns on its lights at dusk. Around this attraction there is a market, where the townspeople claim that there is more activity since this initiative was launched.

Filipe Bacelo, owner of the Rota do Livro bookstore, has a booth in this market and tells EFE that many visitors come to Ermesinde to see the tree.

“It attracts many more, it is an attraction that people like to see here in Ermesinde, in the Valongo council,” says the bookseller, for whom this “It is the magic of Christmas, the magic of love.”

Together with him, Carlos Clemente signs books, who has written a work in Portuguese about the Camino de Santiago, ‘O outro lado do camiño’ (the other side of the road), which will soon be translated into English and French: ““I am a pilgrim and this is the second time I have come to this market, it is a community closely linked to the Camino de Santiago, it has several groups linked to it,” comments.

The tree will remain there until next January 7, and then return to normal and wait for another year.

Thiago, who came from Porto aboard the steam train with his wife, three-year-old son and in-laws, does not hesitate when asked if he would repeat: “Of course”, sentence, while pointing out that his son liked it“although he has fallen asleep.”