Wonders of Portugal. Alenteho region.

Alentejo is a Heritage.

In the Alentejo, you travel naturally with and to History. The abundance and the quality of the

Heritage which it expresses become easy for you to discover but, if you are visiting the Region for the first time, you could be spoiled for choice. If this is the case, don’t hesitate: opt for our

suggestions and you will discover that the magic of the Alentejo is to be found, with endless pleasure, everywhere.

Encounters with History

So that you don’t miss out on any aspect of these thousands of yearsof history, it’s important that you have an idea of the different epochs which have clearly and abundantly made their mark on the rural and urban landscapes of the Alentejo. This is the thinking behind our

selecting the suggestions we make here.

From the times dating back to the Palaeolithic up to the 12th century AD, we suggest that you concentrate on three fundamental periods of time: the

Neolithic, which offers us interesting examples of the megalithic era, the the Roman occupation and the Arab occupation, which left us with an important inheritance, material and non-material, throughout the whole Region.

During the so-called Christian reconquest, Portugal was born as a nation, which means that from the 12th century until the present, we have almost 900 years of history in our hands. From this long period, we will suggest that you discover some of the

castles and historical centres that have a mediaeval flavour and that you visit the emblematic expressions of civil and religious architecture, built during the prosperous times of the Discoveries and the time of exploiting gold from Brazil (15th – 18th centuries).

When planning your travels, in order to experience the essence of the Alentejo to its full, you should leave yourself time to enjoy, freely and in tranquillity, everything that today opens up, conserves and brings life to the heritage present in the monuments.

To achieve this, you need to install yourself in the comfort of a palace, monastery or manor house, to lunch or dine in the former refectory of a convent, to enjoy a drink on a castle terrace, to listen to a concert of sacred music in the setting of a Baroque church, to attend a play in one of those beautiful spaces that formerly received kings, to take part in the spectacles which enliven village, town and city squares on warm summer evenings.

And, because nothing makes sense if you don’t understand what truly creates the soul of this people, you should make sure that, at an appropriate time, you are in some ancient or modern tavern where you can still find yourself listening to the sound of spontaneous Alentejan singing.

Happy travelling!