Over the next 5 weeks I´m going to be blogging a series of Alentejo towns… an Alentejo special! My family came to visit us in May, it was their first time in Portugal so we spent 3 weeks driving the country flat and because this is my favourite part, we spent quite a lot of time exploring the region.

Monsaraz is a small hill-top town on the Alqueva lake, right on the border with Spain. Because of it´s strategic location on a hill near the Spanish border it is one of the oldest towns in the southern part of Portugal and boasts an impressive heritage of conquests from Pre-Roman times right up until the formation of Portugal as an independent country. If history and old stuff is your thing (I love old stuff) then this is the place for you, as the surrounding area is full of neolithic remains and stone age monuments (imagine smaller, more rustic versions of Stonehenge).

p.s. Spot my dad in his blue hat…