After we left the Monsanto region we travelled further north to the Serra da Estrela. We´d been sort-of hoping to catch a bit of snow but since it hadn´t yet started we weren´t really expecting it… and as it turns out, the first snows fell the night after we´d left… bad timing! But I´m also not sure how much fun it would have been to be in a tiny tent in the snow anyway, so I guess everything happens for a reason. The autumn colours got more and more vivid the higher into the mountains we went, and we became completely and utterly obsessed with collecting chestnuts. They were everywhere! It was impossible to resist… I think in the end we had something like 8 kilograms, and only a week or 2 to eat them all… needless to say our friends and family got lots of chestnuts before we left for Cape Town! See the first half of this road trip here: Autumn Road trip – Monsanto