Unwind / Portugal
A Wellness Escape to the Alentejo
Alentejo · 7 min read
The Alentejo covers a third of Portugal and holds about five per cent of its people. It is flat, hot, agricultural and extremely quiet, and in the last decade it has quietly become the country's best region for slow, design led retreats.
You come here to eat well, sleep a lot and see almost nobody.
The landscape
Cork oaks, olive groves, wheat, and a horizon that goes on for a very long way. In spring the plains are covered in wildflowers; by July they are gold and the heat is serious.
Marvao, Monsaraz and Evora are the three towns worth building days around. Evora has Roman ruins, a cathedral and a bone chapel, and it is a UNESCO site that still functions as a normal town.
Where to stay
Herdades, the region's large farm estates, have converted into small hotels with pools, spas and their own vineyards. Many have ten rooms or fewer and a restaurant that only serves guests.
Rooms cost a fraction of the equivalent in Andalusia or Tuscany, particularly outside July and August.
Food and wine
Alentejano cooking is bread based, pork heavy and better than that description suggests: acorda, migas, black pork from acorn fed pigs and a great deal of coriander.
The wines are full bodied reds and increasingly good whites, and estate tastings are informal and rarely need booking.
The case for doing nothing
It is the emptiness that does the work here. Very little to see, a great deal of space to sit in.
Avoid high summer. Forty degrees on the plains is not restful.
