Last November, a few weeks before we left to spend Christmas in South Africa we went on a very spur-of-the-moment camping trip in central Portugal and the Serra da Estrela. I´d been wanting to explore this part of Portugal for ages, particularly the town of Monsanto and it´s little houses built into the boulder strewn hillside… it looked like something out of a fairytale and I really wanted to see it for myself. And so, while checking the weather report one day (I´m a total nerd for weather reports) I saw that we had a full week of sunny days coming up… and so we packed the tent and the dog and all those other important things you need for a camping trip and hit the road.
Most campsites tend to be closed this time of year but we were lucky and found one near the town of Idanha a Nova that was open all year, and the best part was that we had the entire place to ourselves! The nights were cold but during the day the sun shone (thank you, weather report) and the autumn colours were spectacular, much more vivid than where we live on the coast. I really think autumn is the most photogenic season of the year…
Kerry Murray 
What a fascinating place, beautifully captured
Thanks Mark 🙂
[…] See the first half of this road trip here: Autumn Road trip – Monsanto […]
How lovely to see these pictures. We’ve just returned from a spring break in Portugal, where we spent a couple of days in the Serra da Estrela – and of course, it looked quite different. You were lucky to have the glorious autumn colours, and we were lucky to have all the spring blossom. It’s a beautiful part of the country, but now you’ve made me want to see it in the autumn too 🙂
Hi Sheila!
I would love to have seen the spring blossoms too, was there still quite a bit of snow around? Must have been really beautiful, but it´s a part of the world that is stunning regardless of the seasons. 🙂
[…] examples that I´ve recently visited are (to the south) Monsaraz and Mertola, as well as Monsanto (to the north). We visited these towns at different times over the last year or so but it would be […]