Travel Stories - Portugal

We arrive late afternoon with the bus in the small village called "Idanha-a-Velha after a long day traveling from Coimbra. It will not be long before it gets dark. We know that we have to stay here and there is no overnight place (hotel, campsite or what-so-ever). We see a very old house with Roman inscription and then a piece of old wall. We walk through the very small village (it has about 600 inhabitants) and see a few chairs outside and take place at the premises and order a beer. A lot of English is not spoken here, but we are taken to a shop with delicious cheeses and of course we can taste a bit for free. We take another beer and look around us, to the village that was first occupied by the Romans, then Visigoths, then the Moors and finally before the plague erupted by the Templars. Is there maybe a wild-camping-spot where we can stay or does anybody invite us for tonight in the barn or so? 

When it starts to get dark we walk past some ruins through a gate, over a gravel path past some built-up fields, a little stream and then through the fields to the road that we have just driven by bus. We are looking for a spot for the tent with a view of the village which hopefully will be lit tonight and walk again through the arid field where we find two places a few meters away from each other. Apart we set up our tents and we hear the cows and sheep bells in the distance and hope that they won’t come too close. Then we hear the crickets and suddenly it’s dead quiet here. We sit down for a while, hoping for an illuminated village or church but unfortunately this is not the case – it stays dark. We see the mountain behind us, what "Monsanto" should be and the village becomes darker and darker till we won’t see anything anymore. In the far distance we hear some dogs barking and we make our noodles hot and not much later we decide to go to sleep and go to our tents. 

In the morning we pack our tent, walk to the village and drink a cup of coffee and the market square while we see the “SRV” car passing by to bring daily goods to the locals because there is no shop here. Then we decide to go. We walk out of the village onto the dirt road towards the gate we just have to open and then follow the road until you come across the "big" road, cross it and then head towards the mountain of “Montsanto”. We see the first cork trees that look like they have their coat wide open to peak in. The bark, of some of the cork trees, has been removed from the big branches and then they stop taking off for unclear reasons. They are not plantations but they are just a few meters apart along the road. The road is dry, dusty and stony; the landscape is hilly with many olive trees, cork trees and prickly bushes every few meters. It is already hot and we avoid the hill and walk around it when we meet a group of sheep. On the other side of the hill we first have to climb over a fence (there is no gate or anything in it) to get to the motorway. On the side we see a path again and we hesitate which way to go.After some dead-ends we seem to be on the right road now to the village. Then we encounter our first real houses at the foot of the hill. On top there must be “Monsanto”. 

At café Chico we sit down, drink something and look at the sign at the other side of the road which indicates that the village is still 2 km uphill. We ask the owner and it’s allowed to leave our big bags here so we don’t have to carry them up. It’s a beautiful old-fashioned rocky road up and we fantasize how knights on their horses climbed up in the past. We pass some ruines and then we walk along a garden with orange- and lemon trees, dates- and fig trees. We walk further up and suddenly we seem to be at the top; we walk into a narrow cobblestone streets, past a church and we see an old tractor with wooden tires to protect its real tires from the heat. At a viewpoint across the other side of the mountain we see two old ovens and even some cannons from the past. Unfortunately there is no signs or information what it’s all about but we assume that they are French from Neapolitan times.  

Back on the terrace of “our” cafe at the foot of the hill we get some oranges and lemons fresh from the trees and after that we order a delicious cold "Sagres" beer. There is big confusion if there’s a bus coming here and what time it should arrive. During our second beer suddenly it’s here and we have to drink our beer immediately to catch it.