Portugal Walking Tour: The Alentejo

The Alentejo is a peaceful region with a storied history reaching back centuries and even millennia. Gently rolling hills, sleepy villages, and dry fields may seem uninspiring at first — that is, until you get out on the land and walk. It is then that the distinct character of Portugal’s rural heartland reveals itself to the inquisitive traveller.

On this active walking tour, we have arranged daily walks of 10 to 20 kilometres, each from one historic village to the next. On most days, we drive a short distance to our starting point and then meet our vans at the end point before returning to our home base, the first of which is the village of Marvão in the Alto Alentejo region near the Spanish border. These highlands retain the gentle character of the plains while injecting some variety into the landscape through hilltop castles and walled communities that harken to past military conflict. Those days of unrest are long gone, and today’s locals prepare traditional foods and red wines as part of a slower-paced lifestyle. Our second home base near Alter do Chão is in lower-altitude terrain with scattered trees and groves of Cork Oaks. Wander along brides, roadways, and stream banks past whitewashed houses and field full of colourful wildflowers and butterflies.