Trancoso | Monsanto
28 June 2017
In the morning, we got to see the hotel in the light of day and it turned out to have a quaint 70’s vibe with a large breakfast buffet and truly terrible coffee.
We reentered the medieval gates of Trancoso for a wander of the town, and it was blustery.
Climbing the old walls allowed us to look out over collapsed rooftops and into little back gardens. We weren’t up early, but the town was very quiet.
The well was less attractive in the daylight, but luckily the werewolf was nowhere to be seen. With an air of archaicness, the street lamps weren’t fixed at the top of posts, but rather swayed gently in the wind affixed by chains.
There were several churches, including the Igreja de San Pedro which holds the remains of a sixteenth century prophet.
The bunting-filled path to the castle was even more vibrant in the morning rays.
The castle is a relic from the Late Middle Ages, and after we had bought our tickets, a helpful guy provided us with many pamphlets and told us that we could climb the tower.
Once we had ascended the tower, we took in the view over the town below and then walked along the walls. The ramparts were quite intact.
For much of our visit, we had the place to ourselves and could pose in silly ways without fear of judgement. Then another group of tourists arrived, who seems to be the only other tourists in town apart from us (and they had been at breakfast as well).
To fuel our drive to Monsanto, we bought some picnic supplies. Instead of taking the main road, we made a slight detour in order to drive through a national park called Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela. At the start, the park was mainly scrubland with large boulders dotted about, but as we went deeper the scenery became much more beautiful and forested.
The road was winding, and sometimes we would round a corner to see a charming hamlet or a lush valley.
Arriving at Monsanto, we found some parking and readied ourselves for the steep uphill climb. The town was atop a formidable hill, but the sights were well worth the trek.
The whole village had been built up around a large number of giant rocks that littered the hillside.
Residents had really worked their buildings in with the lay of the rocks – boulders formed the walls of many houses and even the roof of a cavelike pigpen.
We then headed up to see the second castle of the day, which used the boulders as bedrock.
The views from the castle were incredible – we could see so far! The sudden gusts of wind made the perch feel a bit dangerous, but we made sure we were careful.
There was an old chapel just outside the castle, and you could see that the ground was so uneven all around and under it! I can imagine many aspects of these buildings would have been difficult to construct.
The whole place was very unique and picturesque, and I was loathe to leave even though I was winded during my entire visit.
As the afternoon was dwindling, we went in search of a campground for the night. Following Google Maps, the road skirted the edge of a lake where we noticed some confused-looking hippies. An oncoming car rolled to a stop next to us and two more bohemians said that they suspected it was on the other side of the lake. It turns out that they weren’t also in search of the camping, as we pressed on and found it easily. We learned upon checking in that the opposite bank of the lake was hosting a Rastafarian festival called Boom Fest (which we had first misheard as ‘Bean Fest’, and agreed is a far superior name). We often seem to find ourselves in the midst of festivals, like the nights in Istria and Brno where we had ended up having to cram into overfull campsites among revellers. Fortunately, this time the campsite was quiet and far from full and we spent a relaxing evening with pasta and Mateus rosé.
Teh Travels 