Since winning a competition in 1938 as the country’s most ‘Portuguese’ village, Monsanto has been largely shielded from modernisation. Several houses are surprisingly grand, some sporting Manueline doorways and stone crests. Halfway to the castle you’ll come across the gruta , a snug cavern apparently once used as a drinking den; other caves around town double as barns for the local sheep and goats. Startlingly enormous boulders are perched precariously throughout, looking like detritus from a clash of the titans.
