|
Parque Natural de Montesinho is in the north east corner of Portugal in the region called Tras os Montes ( meaning beyond the mountains). We used Bragança as our base, leaving the motorhome in the air and taking the MX5 out but it's possible to take a motorhome up into the parque.
A short description of the area would mention the sweet chestnut orchards and schist villages. It's a very beautiful and remote area. |
As motorhomers we are always looking for somewhere for our laundry but this wasn't quite what we had in mind beside the river at Rio de Onor.
Many young people have left this area and the farmers were elderly and as you can see from these two photos, still using traditional farming methods.
We particularly noticed the irrigation system here for the small vegetable gardens creating small dams and irrigation channels. This is the dam and weir at Varge.
Many houses in the villages were in a state of some disrepair but others had been sympathetically restored. We suspect that the recession may have resulted in a slow down in further refurbishment of these old stone houses into holiday homes.
Traditionally the ground floor was for animals with the family living above. We found some of these buildings were still in use for keeping pigs, chickens or pigeons.
The village of Rio de Onor is right on the border between Spain and Portugal so half the village is in Spain.
There are some places to eat here - when we visited the menu del dia at the only place open was costeletas de bife - huge T bone steak cooked to perfection. These peasants certainly know how to eat.
