The Tua Line
Photography Exhibition
La Galerie Parisienne
Paris - France
46, rue Godefroy Cavaignac
F - 75011 Paris
Metro Voltaire
Group Exhibition form 17 to 26 March 2009
Opening Friday, 20 March 2009 from 18:00 to 20:30
12 platinum / palladium photographs
THE TUA LINE
A threatened centennial train line
It is in the Portuguese Alto Douro Wine
Region
now recognized World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO,
halfway
between the Spanish-Portuguese border and the Atlantic
Ocean, where lies the valley of Tua.
Very collected and wild, this valley is dominated by a
magnificent historic railway: The Tua Line.
Previously, one of the largest in the Upper Douro, the railway runs close about 50 km on the river Tua.
Impressive work of engineering, it is with dynamite that engineers from the late 19th century have paved
a path through the crags. At the station of the picturesque village of Foz-Tua the Tua Line joins another
railway line crossing the North of Portugal, the Douro Line.
The river, dotted with rocks and narrow gorges, offers splendid prospects
yet untamed rapids, some say it is one of the last still fully wild rivers in Europe.
The Tua valley, whose fauna and flora are also still largely intact, is however threatened by a dam project
supported by the Portuguese government. A project that would drown and condemn the Tua Line, one of the
most beautiful railways in Europe. Civil society mobilizes to protect this natural heritage, but local mobilization alone will not suffice.