AN IBERIAN PILGRIMAGE

A trio of museums introduces the era; the Museo Militar, Museo Navale and the Royal Coach exhibit, where sumptuous carriages convey the pomp and extravagance that was Portugal.

Civil War buffs spend their holidays tramping the battlefields of Gettysburg and Bull Run, their nights in Holiday Inns and Howard Johnson’s.

I spent my three weeks pursuing the Duke of Wellington through Portugal and Spain, sleeping in palaces and paradors, entranced by fados and flamenco . Bull Run it wasn’t.

Americans know almost nothing about the six-year Peninsular War that helped topple Napoleon. The first misconception is that the Iron Duke did the job in a single shoot-out at Waterloo. The full story covers the years 1808 to 1814 when the duke led a small British and Portuguese army against the French veterans, who often outnumbered him six to one.

The campaigns included 23 major battles and sieges. They began outside Lisbon, continued northeast into the Spanish plains and concluded across the Pyrenees in southern France. Bonaparte, who initially scoffed at the British “insolence,” ended by lamenting, “It was the Spanish cancer that ruined me.”

For the Peninsular pilgrim, many of the battlefields and fortresses retain the look of that stirring time almost two centuries ago; the countryside and cities are off the tourist routes.

We began our campaign in Lisbon, city of good hotels, great and small. A trio of museums serves to introduce the era; the Museo Militar, Museo Navale and the Royal Coach exhibit, where sumptuous carriages convey the pomp and extravagance that was Portugal.

In Lisbon we rented a car and drove north 20 miles to the cool mountain resort town of Sintra. It has a palace-hotel, Seteais, where travelers can linger in style.

Seteais is said to mean Seven Sighs, supposedly uttered by residents when the British signed a disgraceful treaty with the French in the building.

In 1808 Wellington had administered the first of his surprising defeats to the proud invaders, but his timid superiors, arriving late and lacking his confidence, allowed Bonaparte’s army to sail home with their plunder.

The first battlefields are a few miles north: Vimiere and Rolica, not overly commemorated by monuments, and Torres Vedras, where Wellington’s engineers based a line of forts in the steep hills and ravines that the French never dared assault.

Marshal Massena probed a while, then retreated into Spain with his starving troops. Ft. San Vicente is near the town and is easy to identify. At Sapateria, near Torres Vedras, locals show a pair of villas that allegedly sheltered the duke and his staff.

A short drive north of Coimbra is the Forest of Bussaco, another Peninsular battle site, where you can stay in a 19th-Century royal hunting lodge converted to luxury-hotel status. The forest, planted by monks, has cool paths for afternoon strolls and a monastery where, the sacristan insists, the duke spent the night after defeating Massena on the hill a few hundred yards east.

A small but excellent museum nearby explains the complicated Battle of Bussaco (September, 1810). Massena, whom Napoleon often called his finest commander, disdained the upstart British-Portuguese force that occupied the hill at the head of the steep ravines.

In tactics that anticipated Waterloo, the duke concealed his infantry behind the slope until the last moment, then sent them forward in thin lines to pour deadly musket fire into the climbing columns. You stand in the British command post and wonder how the French marshal could have been so arrogant, so heedless of his men’s lives.

From Bussaco a side route leads northwest to Oporto, Portugal’s second-largest city and the scene of a daring river crossing where Wellington surprised the French. Oporto is minimally interesting to me, except for the port wine “lodges,” about 40 of them, that occupy the south bank of the River Douro.

Free tours and generous sips abound. But the roads of central Portugal are rough and narrow, so drivers may choose to head from Bussaco straight northeast to the Spanish border, where public thoroughfares improve notably.

We crossed at Fuentes de Onoro, a primitive village and the scene of a desperate house-to-house fight in May, 1811. The stone-walled streets changed hands again and again as the battle swayed to a bloody draw.

An hour’s drive east takes one to the walled city of Ciudad Rodrigo, dominating the River Agueda. This was one of the two fortresses Wellington had to possess to insure entry to Spain.

In a two-day assault (January, 1812) the British-Portuguese forces stormed the town but at dreadful cost, including two of the best British generals. Ciudad Rodrigo became the base for future operations, and it was never lost.

The principal fort on the town wall is now an elegant inn, the Parador Nacional de Enrique II, with a most distinguished cuisine. In the courtyard, reclaimed brass cannonballs adorn the hitching posts and a rose garden blooms where soldiers died.

You can walk entirely around Rodrigo on the wide battlements and inspect the battle-scarred church. At one end of town, oldsters play at bowls. The sun sets over the stark Spanish plains.

Ninety kilometers northeast on comfortable Route E-3/N-620 is the university city, Salamanca, another station on the Peninsular pilgrimage. A long cannon-shot south of town, near the village of Arapiles, on a hot July day in 1812 the duke smashed a French army in an hour’s brilliant attack, establishing himself as the preeminent English general since Marlborough.

Where Thousands Died

Between two hills the battle swayed and thousands died. After Salamanca the French feared Wellington. He had gained what historians call “moral ascendancy.”

As we sipped coffee and nibbled tapas (tidbits) in a cafe, a riotous crowd burst into the square, detonating fireworks and waving an effigy topped with a skull. Only the medical students celebrating the feast of St. Luke, their patron.

Following Nacional 3 northeast again, we gained the famous old city of Valladolid. Fifty kilometers north toward the Pyrenees is another medieval treasure, Burgos, whose lacy Gothic cathedral is ranked among the greatest of Europe.

Beneath the soaring nave lies Spain’s legendary hero, El Cid, with his beloved consort. Uphill are the ruins of a mighty fort, the Castillo, where Wellington met his only reverse. Unable to capture the castle, he had to retreat to Rodrigo for a time.

Nearer to the Pyrenees

Drawing nearer to the Pyrenees, we spent a day on the battlefield of Vittoria and the nearby town. Roman bridges over the River Zadorra are still used by Fords and Seats, and in 1813 they served the duke’s army, hot with the scent of victory, to crush the French invasion for good and to drive Bonaparte’s brother, King Joseph, out of Spain.

So much plunder was disgorged by the fleeing French that British privates got rich. Abandoning his carriage, Joseph lost a fortune in jewels and paintings, and even his silver chamber mug, now a trophy in a British regimental mess.

In 1813 the French survivors of Vittoria holed up in a fort and defied attacks for weeks.

Disregarding Costs

At last, disregarding the costs, British and Portuguese “forlorn hope” detachments stormed in, and the city burned for seven days. Traces of this tragedy are mercifully few.

We stayed in a modern hotel overlooking the lovely promenade and enjoyed the Basque restaurants (jatetexeas) that feature delicate fish soup and seafood laced with mild peppers. Tseiripa was one restaurant we chose, at the top of Triumfo Street.

The final Peninsular pilgrimage in Spain took us east along the Pyrenees foothills to Pamplona, famous for its bullfights, but in 1813 a formidable fortress.

Returning to the French border at Irun, we took the road up the valley of the River Ulzana to the Val de Baztan. At Sorauren, six miles from Pamplona, we paused at another Roman bridge.

His Narrowest Squeak

The inhabitants take it for granted, but this is an exciting artifact: It’s where the Iron Duke had his narrowest squeak.

In July, 1813, the French Marshal Nicolas Soult counter-attacked through Pyrenees passes and drove the allies to the final defensive ridge before Pamplona. As Wellington issued orders on this bridge, French dragoons raced to nab him. But the British general, a superb horseman, galloped off, joined his weary troops on the ridge above, and stopped Soult’s desperate thrust.

Over a pass bordered by stone farmhouses we droped down into the Val de Baztan, Basque heartland. Soult’s troops fled down these valleys and over the mountains back into France. There would be more fighting in their homeland before Napoleon abdicated and went into exile on Elba, but the British and their allies prevailed until the final curtain fell.

We followed the River Bidassoa to Irun and crossed into France ourselves. Like warriors after a long fray, we chose softer battles in the vineyards of Bordeaux.

Addresses of the accommodations mentioned, with prices for a double room in late 1985:

Hotel Palacio des Seteais, 2710 Sintra, Portugal, $65. Palace Hotel, Bussaco, 3050 Mealhada, Portugal, $48. Parador Nacional de Enrique II, Ciudad Rodrigo (Salamanca), Spain, $40. Landa Palace, Carretera de Madrid-Irun Km. 236, Burgos, Spain, $54. Hotel de Londres y de Inglaterra, Zubleta 2, 20007 San Sebastian, Spain, $46.

Also recommended: Albergeria (Inn) Rainha Santa Isabel, Obidos (near Rolica), modern and inexpensive. Hotel Grao Vasco, Viseu (between Bussaco and the Spanish frontier), stately and reasonable. Hotel Meridien, Oporto, ultra-modern and expensive by Portuguese standards.

Recommended reading: history books under “Wellington.” Very readable is Elizabeth Longford’s “Wellington, Years of the Sword” (1969). Classic biographies of the remarkable soldier have been written by Philip Guedalla and Richard Aldington, among others.