Montinhos

"The eyes never get tired of gazing at the ancient Flemish Tapestry perched on the Alentejo ridges, where the silver of the barley is followed by the rich ranges of wheat in various shades of green, even the golden yellows where the wind creates ripples and, to better remind us of the Ocean, there is always the scuffle of the husks shining in the sun.

To all this, musing in the shade of a large hat, men added the patch of dark green or the border of the eucalyptus trees, on a poorer patch of land or on the long road where their daughters return singing, in groups of flowered hats and with backs as straight as they were bent during the day of weeding.

Against these trees and the fresh poplar grove of some rare, undried stream, against these peculiar verticals, stands the squat cork oak and the holm oak, the latter more leafy, a dark green, and the former with large, fleshless limbs covered in red wounds, secure in their position and paying generously for it with the fattening of their cattle or the offering of their precious home.

These are the "montados" so dear to man, like the ancient olive groves that the Moor grafted onto the wild olive tree and taught to water it. And on the rare shadows of these ancient forests, longing for the deer and the porcupine, slows the traveller his pace and meditates."

– “Arquitectura Popular em Portugal”