Friday 8 March - Monsaraz

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire perched on the second tier of the town walls at Monsaraz. What the Aire lacks in services (none here, but there's a service point a couple of km away) it makes up for in views. Exact location: 38.44253, -7.37984.

Weather: Foggy start soon clearing to give a mainly sunny day.

As I ran through the fog this morning I wondered whether it was a common weather phenomenon before the reservoir was created. As I dodged the slugs that littered the road I also had to wonder whether their population was so strong before a permanent means of irrigation was created. That led me to wonder quite how much such a large body of water and less arid surroundings have altered the climate in these parts. I don't have answers to any of those wonderings.

Later in the day I did discover the answer to a question that had been in my mind for the last few days: how long did it take for the reservoir to fill? We knew that the flood gates were opened on 8 February 2002, that the village of Luz was relocated soon afterwards, but that the old village wasn't demolished until 2003. Today I found a timeline that not only told me that the fill-time was 7 years and 11 months, but also gave me other interesting history - like work towards creating this massive body of water initially started in 1957. Groundworks started in 1976, but were suspended in 1978, not to recommence until the mid-1990s. The project wasn't declared complete until the final 30,000 hectares of irrigation became operational in 2015. 

In between these pondering and learning episodes, we relocated ourselves by 25km, crossing the water (via a bridge) in the process. The Aire here at Monsaraz has good reviews for its outstanding views, but even so, I didn't expect it to be as good as this. Not only does Bertie have this view from his windscreen...

On the small screen of my phone that photo doesn't even start to do justice to what we can see before us.

...but just a couple of minute's walk behind him (and up a bit) is the historic fortified hill-top village.

It's not a big place, but being relatively quiet at this time of year (based on the amount of parking available, I'm guessing it's a signifiant tourist destination in summer) it was a remarkably pleasant walk around its streets and the remains of the castle walls/towers. We've been to plenty of medieval villages in France and Spain and a fair smattering of fortified places too, but this has got to be the best. I can't think of anywhere else with views to rival here.

We were on our way back to Bertie from our wanderings when we spotted the museum, although it was closed for lunch at the time. I Googled it this afternoon and a few minutes later we were on our way back up for a visit. We only had an hour and a half before closing, but reviews said that it was tiny, so I figured that was plenty long enough. 

The entry fee was only €1, which would have felt about right for such a small place, the main purpose of which is to show a 15th century fresco (which turned out to be smaller than I'd expected). There were also information panels about the castle and a few other bits and pieces. What we hadn't expected was that the €1 fee also included entry to the 'House of Inquisitions' at the other end of the village, so once we'd done with the museum (less than half an hour), we hot-footed it over there. 

It was another very small museum, formed almost entirely from picture/information panels on the walls, but I now have a basic knowledge of the Inquisition in Monsaraz (imagine being sentenced of a crime on the evidence that you swept your house from front to back!). 

When we travelled down through Spain back in January, we contemplated entering Portugal at Badajoz and making Monsaraz our first stop, but ultimately decided to continue down through Spain and enter via the most southerly access point. I'm now glad we did that. I wasn't bowled over by the Algarve in any case, but I think that having been somewhere as good as this as our first stop would have set unreasonably high expectations for the rest of the country.

On to photos:

Looking up at the village from the tier below Bertie (Bertie is below the left side of the big white building):

Looking towards the castle from Bertie's back bumper:

Looking over the Aire to the reservoir:

The main square:

Looking over the curtain wall on the other side of the village, where the outlook is green pasture and fruit/nut-tree plantations:

Looking over the town from one of the castle's semi-ruined towers:

By appearances, a bull-ring within the castle:

Finally, another snap from Bertie's front bumper, which (again) doesn't do justice to the view:

(Today's aside: After weeks of barely seeing a Brit, today we find ourselves surrounded by them (well, except for our immediate neighbour who is Dutch). I think that usually the main migration back to the UK would happen during the second part of March and through April. This year, the majority of people we've spoken to have decided to head back to the UK before Brexit, thus concentrating the migration into a much shorter window.)