Portugal Guide
Mountain Beiras
Composed of two historic provinces, the Beira Alta (Upper) and Beira Baixa (Lower), the mountain Beiras region features some of the most spectacular but least explored country in the Iberian peninsula: the enormous boulders which lie strewn across much of the land limit agriculture and have instead favoured a pastoral culture of grazing animals, rugged hamlets and isolated country towns. It's also arguably the most quintessentially Portuguese part of the country, little touched by outside influence.
Highlights
1 Museu Grão Vasco, Viseu Explore the works of one of Portugal's greatest artists in Viseu's fine museum.
2 Fortified walls of Almeida The extraordinary fortifications here are built in the form of a twelve-pointed star.
3 Belmonte An unsung treasure of a town, from the picturesque castle to its restored Jewish quarter.
4 Village stay, Sortelha Stay the night in one of the restored houses in this eerie walled village in the Beira Baixa.
5 Monsanto Houses hewn out of granite cling to a boulder-strewn hillside below a formidable castle.