There is much to see and enjoy: the spectacular fortifications of Elvas; Portalegre; the hilltop villages of Monsaraz and Marvão; the marble cities of Estremoz and Vila Viçosa.
This region is full of prehistoric remains, including more than a dozen megalithic sites with dolmens, menhirs and stone circles.
For most visitors, understandably, what attracts in the region are the towns and cities, notably Évora, whose Roman temple, medieval walls and churches put it on the tourist map.
South of Évora, in the plains of the Baixo Alentejo, without a car it is difficult to enjoy it to the full. Dependent on buses means you’ll have to spend nights in places where you could simply stop for a couple of hours.
To the west, the Alentejo coastline is almost as long as the Algarve, considerably less developed. Only a few small resorts – notably Vila Nova de Milfontes attracts crowds – the beaches are excellent and you can visit almost all of them by public transport.
The Alentejo plains are predominantly agricultural, dominated by cork and olive trees – crops that have adapted to the low rainfall and sweltering summer heat.
It covers a huge area, almost a third of the entire country, stretching from south of the River Tagus to the mountain ranges of the northern Algarve
. Much of the landscape inland is tedious – which makes up for it with surprises – superbly situated castles, cities between remote walls, Roman ruins and Atlantic beaches. It is also home to hundreds of bird species, from black storks to bustards.
It is also one of the areas in Europe where we can see the large agricultural estates known as latifundios, in place since Roman times. Passed down from generation to generation, these estates partly retained their feudal character until the 1974 revolution – when much of it was collectivised.
However, the workers did not have the financial means to deal with a succession of bad harvests, and landowners again acquired the properties.
