Monsanto I - Jan-Eric Osterlund

*Monsanto situated at the upper part of a tall mountain near the Spanish boarder*

Monsanto is a most unique and charming village in Central Portugal close to the boarder with Spain. It sits near the top of a hill 800 metres above sea level. King Alfonso Henriques took Monsanto from the Moors in 1165 and granted it to the Templar monks, who built a fortified castle at the top.

The upper part of the hill is strewn with enormous granite boulders. The entire village has been built around those boulders. They form part of the walls and sometimes even the roof of the medieval stone cottages that are Monsanto. And the cobbled alleyways wind around those boulders climbing up from the lower parts of the village all the way up to the ruins of the castle at the top.

*We met the first boulders below the village and stopped to capture an image of our rental car parked below a couple of the massive stones*

The Latin name for the mountain is Mons Sanctus, which of course has given the name to the village. We stayed there one night at the lower parts and spent the late afternoon and evening navigating the alleyways and footpaths climbing up between the boulders and up to the castle at the top.

*This was as far as we could drive. Our cottage for the night was along the lane running away behind the village cross*

*From our house we climbed up along the village among stone boulders and medieval granite cottages*

*A restaurant,* Petiscos e Granitos, *is located underneath the enormous stone boulder*

*A view over the town and the surrounding landscape from the same spot as where my previous image was captured*

We had now reached the top of the village itself, but the most fascinating part of the uphill climb hadn’t yet begun. We were leaving the little town behind us climbing up among the boulders to the top of the hill and the castle. But those photos I will publish in my next post.