Countryside
ALENTEJO - São Bartolomeu da Serra, Costa Vicentina
Alentejo
The Alentejo is Portugal's quietest region — cork oaks, wheat fields, whitewashed villages stretching almost from the Tagus to the Algarve. São Bartolomeu da Serra sits in its own corner of it, closer to the wildness of the coast than to the monuments most visitors chase in Évora or Monsaraz.
Costa Vicentina
That coast is the Costa Vicentina — one of Europe's last undeveloped Atlantic coastlines, protected precisely because it resisted the development that reshaped the Algarve to its south. The Rota Vicentina runs through it: the Fishermen's Trail along the clifftops, the Historical Way through the interior — an underrated multi-day walk I've done sections of myself.
From here, two very different coasts are within easy reach. North, Comporta, Carvalhal, and Melides carry an understated glamour — pine forest, wide sand, design-led beach clubs tucked into the dunes. South and west, Malhão, Vieirinha, and Monte Velho are rawer and surf-driven — open Atlantic breaks and wild dunes inside the natural park. Few places let you sample both without committing to either.
Our Houses in the Countryside
Casa Lisboa, Casa Manila, and Casa Maputo are three cottages I renovated by hand, sharing a private saltwater lap pool and garden — independent on their own, but built to come alive together for groups, multi-generational trips, and walkers arriving in twos and threes off the trail. Of everything under Malas a Montes, these three are the clearest expression of what we mean by houses with soul, where time slows down.
