Longroiva, um exemplo das conexões cidade-campo

Abstract

The complex, historical relationships between city and countryside can be analysed based on activities associated to the production and trade of agricultural products. However, other activities may also arise related to the endogenous potential and resources of rural areas, as well as the connections with neighbouring territories, especially with urban areas, their main consumers. Rural spaces are not static as they have experienced profound changes. They have been particularly affected by issues such as access routes, demographic flows and, more recently, the digital world. Regardless of the circumstances and the agronomic potential and heritage of these spaces, city-countryside relationships have changed, involving the intervention of multiple agents at several levels, whether public or private, local, regional, national, or even international. This paper intends to analyse the rural environment and its modernisation/conservation, but from a holistic perspective that encompasses all its autochthonous potentialities, including its thermal resources. Indeed, thermal baths also reflect city-countryside relationships, since this activity, once classified as medicinal, has been modernised and expanded to include leisure and wellness. Such a strategy required not only structural transformations, but also functional and aesthetic changes. At the same time, local agricultural products have been disseminated by members of the Portuguese diaspora, as well as spa clients and visitors. Urban-rural relationships are multifaceted, favouring the revitalisation of these peripheral spaces and closer territorial (re)connections, especially with the urban world. This is the case of the Longroiva Thermal Baths and Spa (NE Portugal), which will be analysed in this paper.