Monsanto: up through the granite village: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

A hill village of granite, from its west gate to its castle

Monsanto is built of the granite of its own hill: a gate chapel, a clock tower, a pillory, a fountain set into a rocky outcrop and, higher up, a castle and a ruined chapel with graves cut in the stone.

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The stops

1. 1Capela de Santo António

   This small Manueline chapel stands beside the Porta de Santo António, the gate that opens onto the old paved way down to the chapel of São Pedro de Vir-a-Corça. If you can get a look inside, the vault above you is Gothic.

   

2. 2Torre de Lucano (Torre do Relógio)

   The Torre de Lucano, also called the Torre do Relógio, carries a replica of the silver rooster that came with Monsanto's 1938 title of most Portuguese village in Portugal, awarded in a government-sponsored competition. Benches here look out over the Idanha plain.

   

3. 3Pelourinho de Monsanto

   The pillory stands in the Largo da Misericórdia, also called the Largo do Pelourinho. It was put up in 1510, when King Manuel I renewed the town's charter, and its round top, decorated with half-spheres, was found in a nearby house wall and set back in place in 1937. As you walk on, notice how the lanes wind: the villagers built around the boulders instead of moving them.

   

4. 4Fonte Ferreiro

   This fountain is tucked into a nook of a large rocky outcrop. It is a dipping well, a rare type here: a square tank carved out of the rock below the level of the street, under a barrel vault, with replicas of battlements along the top. A small tile beside the spring says its water quenched the thirst of "obscure heroes".

   

5. 5Castelo de Monsanto

   At the highest point the Knights Templar built a walled enclosure with a keep, after King Afonso Henriques gave the region to the Order in 1165. Inside the walls you will find a cistern and the chapel of Santa Maria do Castelo, rebuilt from a Templar building. In the 19th century an explosion of the powder magazine left the medieval castle partly in ruins.

   

6. 6Capela de São Miguel

   This ruined chapel dates to the 12th or 13th century and has Romanesque features. Graves are cut into the rock around it, some shaped to the human figure. By the 16th century houses had crowded around the chapel.

   

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