Alentejo's walled village above the Alqueva — stone streets and megalithic mystery
Monsaraz is a tiny medieval village of 150 souls perched on a hilltop above the Alqueva reservoir — the largest artificial lake in Western Europe, created in 2002 when a dam flooded the Guadiana valley. The village itself predates the reservoir by 800 years: cobbled lanes, whitewashed houses trimmed in yellow, a 13th-century castle converted to a bullfighting ring, and Alentejo's best sunset views over the water. The surrounding plain is dotted with megalithic standing stones that predate Stonehenge.
The hilltop of Monsaraz has been occupied since prehistoric times — the surrounding Alentejo plain contains one of the highest concentrations of megalithic monuments in Europe, including the Great Menhir of Bulhoa (5 metres high, over 5,000 years old) just below the village walls. The Romans, Visigoths, and Moors all fortified the summit before the Portuguese king Afonso II granted Monsaraz its first charter in 1226, and the 13th-century castle walls still enclosing the village were built by the military Order of Santiago.