what to see in the Alentejo

Fringed by salt-flats and paddy-fields, Alcácer do Sal is an old port town on the Sado River about 90 kilometres south-east of Lisbon.

Famous for its creamy cheeses, Serpa is a peaceful agricultural hilltop town of lovely white houses huddled around an ancient castle in the south-eastern corner of the Alentejo.

Perched in the foothills of the São Mamede mountains, Portalegre is a delightful 17th-century city of lovely old houses with wrought-iron grilles and balconies nestling in the north-eastern corner of the picturesque Alentejo region of Portugal.

Rising conspicuously from the vast open plain, about an hour’s drive north-east of Évora, the lovely town of Estremoz is one of the most rewarding places to visit in Portugal’s picturesque Alentejo region.

Famous for its sugar plums, Elvas is also a citadel whose Spain-facing fortifications match those of Badajoz across the border a few kilometres away.

Laid out flat between the Atlantic and the Alentejo like a vast patched picnic blanket, the Estremadura region is one of the most varied in the whole of Portugal.

Nestling on the northern slopes of the Serra de Borba mountains, the pretty town of Borba rises neatly above the vast plains in the heart of Portugal’s enchanting Alentejo region.

With its colourful vistas, wide-open roads and dazzling whitewashed villages, the great expanse of the Alentejo is perhaps the most vivid of Portugal’s landscapes.