Cachão: agro-industrial memory of the Tua valley

Opened in the 1960s, the Cachão agro-industrial complex promised to transform the rural economy of Trás-os-Montes: slaughterhouse, olive presses, mills and canning lines gathered in a single hub by the Tua railway.

Decline came in the following decades, but working-class memory remained in the neighbouring villages. Today, the interpretation center installed on the site recovers that history — the machines, the trades and the lives that passed through Cachão.

Visiting Cachão is understanding why the industrial heritage of the Duero Douro is not just stone and iron: it is the collective biography of a cross-border region.