The Alentejo, Portugal

I had only previously visited the Algarve and Porto in Portugal, so a week in another region of the country (which I confess I knew nearly nothing about), courtesy of a newly-launched weekly flight from London Heathrow into Beja, in the centre of The Alentejo, was a revelation about this little-known yet vast region of Portugal, just north of the Algarve.

[ EXPAND Click here for me]

The Alentejo extends from the pristine Atlantic coast in the west (part of a National Park) to the Spanish border in the east. Intensely rural – we spotted numerous shepherds and cowherds guarding their animals – it was like going back in time in both the countryside and little fishing villages, while wine tasting, spa treatments and excellent restaurants gave us a level of sophistication that I hadn’t expected.

Storks nesting along the roadsides – on nearly every telegraph pole in some places, not to mention on the roof-tops of disused agricultural buildings, chimneys and churches – were fascinating and required many photo stops. The storklets were huge babies and the nests untidy messes of huge twigs tied together with a mix of mud and straw, also providing homes for an array of much smaller, sparrow-like birds in a kind of colony arrangement.

At the end of May, spring flowers were past their peak but still provided splashes of yellow, white and blue in many of the fields. Poppies lined the roadsides. Other fields were full of wheat, sunflowers, vines, olive trees and cork trees.

Wine production is a key industry in Portugal and 45% of the country’s wine is made in The Alentejo. Portuguese wine ranges from cheap, crisp and cheerful Vinho Verde, produced in the north (€7 a bottle and much enjoyed in a beachside restaurant with grilled fresh sardines and large prawns at the little town of Vila Nova de Milfontes) to those produced in the Alentejo itself, for example the deeply fruity and desperately expensive Pera Manca (€195 a bottle at the excellent restaurant at the Hotel Convento do Espinheiro, Evora, and only slightly less in a wine shop), which appears in small quantities only every few years from the much-admired Adega Cartuxa in Evora. The Pera Manca white was much more affordable than the red, at €19 direct from the winery.

The ever-present cork trees have their bark harvested every nine to ten years, and cork now has many more uses than just as stoppers for wine bottles. It can be made into thin waterproof material, ideal for umbrellas, hats, jackets, menu cards – you name it! Cork is also used to make attractive bracelets and other jewellery, plus of course table and drinks mats.