After Four Years Shut, the Museu da Terra de Miranda Welcomes Visitors Back Free This Weekend, With Mirandese at the Centre of Its New Galleries
About two million euros of works, mostly from the Recovery Plan, added three neighbouring buildings. A community performance, a square party and sung verses mark the reopening in Miranda do Douro.
The Museu da Terra de Miranda, in Miranda do Douro, reopens to the public today after four years closed for renovation and enlargement, with a free programme that runs until Sunday evening.
The works cost about two million euros, mostly paid for by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), and included buying three neighbouring buildings to give the museum more room, its director, Celina Pinto, told Lusa at the end of September.
A museum that speaks Mirandese
The biggest change is in how the collection is told. Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, the public company that runs the country's national museums, says the new route offers "a new museum experience in which Mirandese takes a central place, side by side with Portuguese".
Mirandese is Portugal's second official language, spoken in Miranda do Douro and neighbouring villages close to the Spanish border. Last month the government gave it a six-pillar strategic plan with 500,000 euros a year, and a museum built around the language gives that effort a public home.
According to Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, the new displays put "not only the objects, but also the people, the voices, the knowledge and the practices that give them meaning" at the centre. Themes include the language and the territory, history, arts and crafts, the home, traditional dress, dance and music.
The weekend programme
- Saturday, 16:00: the reopening begins with "L'AMPEÇO", a community performance created with local people under the artistic direction of Ondamarela.
- Saturday, 18:00 to 23:00: a party in the Praça D. João II.
- Sunday, 16:00: a guided visit with "Loas cantadas", sung verses performed by the Grupo Etnográfico do Centro Cultural de Sendim.
The museum also opens a temporary exhibition, "Ramos de Oferenda da Terra de Miranda", on the decorated offering branches that local communities carry in a tradition tied to the farming year, to bread and to shared celebration.
Forty years of collecting
The museum was founded in 1982 by a team led by António Maria Mourinho, a priest and scholar of the region's traditions. Its collections come from the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso and Mogadouro and cover archaeology, weapons, hunting, household equipment, musical instruments, ritual objects, shepherding and clothing, among other areas.
Planning a visit
Miranda do Douro sits on the edge of the Douro International Natural Park, about an hour's drive from Bragança, and is known for its old town, its cathedral, the gorges of the Douro and the stick dancers, the pauliteiros.
Entry over the reopening weekend is free. Opening hours and ticket prices after the weekend are published by Museus e Monumentos de Portugal; it is worth checking them before travelling, since the national museums are also rewriting their free-entry days under an agreement with Brussels.
