Alentejo is a tranquil rural area in the south-central part of the country.  It’s the perfect escape from the noise and hustle and bustle of the city.  Since it’s located so close to Lisbon, it’s a day tour we heartily recommend – without a doubt one of our favorites!  Featuring landscapes of gentle hills, fields of cork trees, regal castles, walled towns and deserted beaches, it’s the perfect combination for a town that has lived in isolation and solitude for centuries.  With untouched paths until not too long ago, the towns of this region have preserved their customs and traditions like the “Alentejo song,” designated by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).  For us, Alentejo is one of the regions that best represents and transmits the very essence of Portugal. 

During your Alentejo tour, we’ll visit Evora, stopping to eat so we can enjoy the area’s cuisine, characterized by meat or fish stews seasoned with cilantro and wine from the region.  Along the route we’ll also stop in Monsaraz Portugal.  We recommend adding a extra stop to the full-day Alentejo tour to taste local wines or visit a cork factory. 

The Alentejo tour is a perfect day tour to make from Lisbon.  Some of the tour highlights are: 

Evora and the Dos Ossos Chapel: our first stop during the Alentejo tour 

One of the reasons to visit Alentejo is without a doubt it’s small towns.  Alentejo has some of the most beautiful towns in all of Portugal.  Evora is an essential place to visit in Alentejo, as it’s the only Portuguese town that is part of the Most Ancient European Towns Network.  It’s also a World Heritage City, whose historic center is one of the most well-preserved in the country.  Evora is like an open-air museum — just walking through its streets is quite the experience! 

One of the most amazing in Evora is the Dos Ossos Chapel (Chapel of Bones), the town’s most sobering monument.  It features an impressive ossuary with over 5,000 human bones and skulls that is part of the San Francisco Church. 

If you are only interested in visiting Evora, we recommend you take our  Evora day trip from Lisbon.  

Monsaraz Portugal — one of the most beautiful medieval Portuguese towns.  

If we were to sum up Monsaraz, we would say that it’s a town with a powerful mountaintop castle, white houses with slate floors, a city wall with four of its doors still preserved…in short, one of the oldest and most beautiful medieval towns in Portugal.  Monsaraz was under Arab control until its conquest in 1232 with the help of the Knights Templar. 

The most emblematic place in Monsaraz Portugal is its castle, crowning the summit of Mount Monsaraz.  The castle was built at the end of the 13th century upon the ruins of Roman, Visigoth and Arab fortifications. 

We’ll make another stop in Monsaraz to visit its menhirs.  Enigmatic and fascinating, these circular stone monuments were left behind by megalithic civilizations.  

Wine tasting during the Alentejo tour (optional)

They say that in Alentejo, the wine is cheaper than the water.  Of course, this isn’t the case, at least not anymore!  But wine is without a doubt one of the star “crops” of the area, one of the most important wine regions in Portugal.  The wine is soft and fruity and pairs wonderfully with Alentejo cheeses. 

Portugal is one of the countries with the largest variety of indigenous grapes.  All in all, its estimated to have over 500 different types!    The Alentejo region produces both Portuguese and foreign varieties, including Aragonez, Alfrocheiro, Alicante, Bouschet, Castelão, Trincadeira, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Moreto, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon (among the reds), and Antão Vaz, Arinto, Roupeiro, Fernão Pires, Manteúdo, Perrum, Rabo de Ovelha, Tamarez, Trincadeira das Pratas, Viosinho, Verdelho and Chardonnay (among the whites). 

Our wine visit not only includes tasting Alentejo wines but also included a cheese tasting and a visit to a medieval palace (in Portuguese, “paço”).  Optionally, we can include a barrel tasting and acorn-flavored ham. 

Visit to a cork factory (optional)

Portugal is the largest producer of cork in the world and, along with Spain, produces the highest quality.  The vast cork oak fields, or “montados,” from which the precious raw material is extracted every nine years, gain prominence and beauty in the Alentejo region. 

In addition, we also recommend adding a nature experience to your visit so you can see the entire production cycle of the cork.  You’ll visit the grove and the factory where the cork is transformed.