Another beautiful part of Portugal I've discovered over my trip this weekend is Alentejo (the South-Central part of the country), and the first city I've visited was Montemor-o-novo.
As I will later on notice, this little city is a typical one for this region - an area rich in agriculture with olives tree orchards, cork tree forests, cows, sheep and pigs running free on the green fields, with very small medieval cities spread around in between the hills.
The architecture is unitary: white houses with painted accents of yellow, blue or red as well as ajulezos accents (but very few comparing to Lisbon) glued together to form medieval
urban tissue - with narrow, labyrinthine streets going up hill to a stone castle that reigns over the area from the higher place. This can be named the "the Alentejo model of a city" - with no exception! (I've seen this weekend at least 20 castles - one in every city).
But what makes this city special, and the castle (now just ruins) unique is that this is the place where the important decisions were made, such as the decision to go and discover India as well as the decision to build the University of Coimbra.
Besides the castle and the breathtaking view over the surroundings there is not much to see in this very little city - maybe just walk for a while on the streets discovering the beauty of the place and taking in the atmosphere as well as observing the peaceful and quiet way of life of the people here (for example you can notice that every house has this stone washer that women use to wash the clothes by hand, as in the old times).
So if you want to slow down and breathe the fresh, clean air, I recommend a trip to Alentejo - the place where time stops.