Lenços dos Namorados

The lenço dos namorados is a square of linen or cotton embroidered by a young woman with hearts, keys, flowers, birds and, centrally, a verse of her own composition addressed to a man she was interested in. She gave it to him; if he wore it visibly - in a pocket, round his neck, on his hat - the interest was returned and the courtship was public. If not, it came back. The verses are direct, often clumsy in metre, sometimes explicitly desiring, and the misspellings were not corrected because the point was that the girl had written it herself. They date at least to the seventeenth century in the Minho, and the tradition centres on Vila Verde, where a municipal project since the 1990s has revived the craft, certified the makers and given the motifs a design afterlife on ceramics, jewellery and textiles sold nationally.

What you actually see

• The verses - love declarations written and embroidered by the woman herself.
• The motifs - hearts, keys, birds and flowers in a fixed symbolic vocabulary.
• The courtship rule - wearing it publicly meant acceptance; returning it meant no.
• The Vila Verde revival - a municipal project certifying makers since the 1990s.

When to go

Year-round. An hour or two at workshops in Vila Verde or at Minho museums. Craft fairs and the Romaria da Agonia in August bring more on sale.

Honest expectations

Most handkerchiefs sold in tourist shops are printed reproductions, not hand-embroidered - the genuine ones are certified and cost considerably more. Workshops keep working hours. Vila Verde is a small town with little else for visitors.

Nearby

Braga is south; Ponte de Lima and the Lima valley are north.