Monsanto - An historical portuguese village

A friend of mine, Lia Flora, - thank you Lia! - went to Monsanto and made a couple of nice photos. I asked her if I could share it with you and she said yes. I prefer to show you photos taken by Portuguese people on travel than to show you the ones I have from advertising sources. Sometimes these late are digitally retouched. This way I give you what you could really see if you were on the spot.

Monsanto is a peculiar village. It belongs to Castelo Branco District. It's in mid-Portugal, nearby to the Spanish border. Look at the map. In the summer the temperature is very high in this region, in winter it can get very cold. I am sure you would love the local scenery where the houses are built only with granite stone, a local and natural resource. Some of them are built using rocks as walls or ceilings and one of these big, huge rocks has a restaurant below in the basement. Monsanto really rocks! It's a remarkable village and at the top of maybe 1500 feet high hill, there's an old fortress. From there you can get stunning views of the countryside. These rhymes about Monsanto are famous :

Nunca se sabe em Monsanto,
Que as águias roçam com a asa,
Se a casa nasce da rocha
Se a rocha nasce da casa.

This means:

You'll never know in Monsanto,
a place eagles touch with its wings,
if a house is born from a rock
or if a rock is born from a house!

No rhyme, no fun. But you got the idea!!