It was Teresa’s birthday, definitely a day off from the clearing of the stream, after all we was on holiday as well, so need some leisure time. It was a good opportunity to get in the hire car and explore. There were many road signs around the area pointing out a place called Monsanto; you know the brown ones, so indicating a tourist type place.
Monsanto is about 60kms from our plot towards the Spanish boarder, which is about 100kms away. We did a little more research on the internet to discover its attractions was that housing and fortress area that is embedded into the outcrop, hill, mountain whatever you want to call it.
It is a fascinating place, as you get close you can see the outcrop rising up. You can’t get all the way up in the car, but there is a car park at the base of the outcrop, where there are the usual cafés and souvenir sellers. You can walk form here, but be warned it’s a long way up and I mean up. The better alternative is the free local buses that run very regularly up and down, but hang on!! There are plenty more opportunities to stretch your legs when you get towards the village itself.
There seemed to be two ways to the top, both involve the use of your legs, the blue route and the red route. Yep red is the harder and yep that’s the way we went, if you can do it, the views are amazing. I have added some photos below for you to see.
The weather wasn’t brilliant so I think we will visit again on a sunnier day, but you can get the idea. The day was rounded off with meal in restaurant recommended to us by the architect. Marco’s in Fundão on the road towards Covilhã. It was OK, obviously a very popular place as the restaurant was huge, a very child friendly place. The food was OK, maybe its just because we was looking for something a bit more special as it was Teresa’s birthday, but we felt very rushed and totally not in control of the meal. I think we was in seated, ordered, eaten, and bill paid and back in the car in 45 minutes.
We seemed to be back in car driving back to hotel and the evening hadn’t started. Still it was a lovely day and nice not to be up to knees in weeds and stream water.
Happy Birthday Darling.