Need a trip to ancient times? Here you go — amazing Monsanto village

Soon it will be a year since I moved to Portugal. It seemed to me that I know this country so well and have seen most beautiful spots here. Pfuf! Not a bit of it! I think that lifetime is not enough to explore the beauty of this amazing country.

This time I was astonished by a wonderful village of Monsanto. It is not only a very beautiful, ancient and spectacular place, it is like from the pages of old fairy tales I used to read when I was a child. It looks unreal and that is why so captivatingly beautiful to me. If you want to find a place where the time stands still and history is breathing to your face through all the stones and pebbles, then this is the place.

The most typical and for me the most magical feature of Monsanto is the fact that the village developed around impressively big and miraculously balanced granitic boulders.

Imagine, here the evidences of human presence since the Palaeolithic Era were found. King Afonso Henriques conquered Monsanto from the Moors and later granted it to the Templar monks who had built the castle on the top of village. Isn’t it a place worth of visiting and spending here a day or two? If you will catch the sunset from the top of the castle — trust me, that is an experience and view you will never forget. Village changes completely during the sunset: different colours, different birds singing, heavy but at the same time so transparent mist covers like a warm light blanket the whole village and its wonderful surroundings.

That trip was one of those rare moments when I remained silent all the time I was there, that much I was impressed. I think my husband was very happy to that. ;) But if to be serious it is impossible to describe the beauty of Monsanto with the words this time, whatever I write, you need to see it with your own eyes. I hope my photos will help to feel the place and make a short tour for you. At the same time my plan is to tease and seduce you after all to see the place with your own eyes.

Monsanto has earned two titles– the Most Portuguese Village in Portugal in 1938 and Historical Village in 1995. Now it is one of the region’s main tourist attractions and it offers visitors a unique experience to travel in time and see Portugal how it was hundreds years ago.