For our third day on our historic villages of Portugal tour, we took a day off from hiking and visited three of the twelve historic villages. The villages we visited were Sortelha, Belmonte, and Linhares da Beira.
Sortelha
While Monsanto, which we visited yesterday, is known as the most Portuguese village of Portugal, Sortelha may rank as one of the prettiest. Sorthelha, located in Sabugal, the heart of the Beira region of central Portugal, is situated atop a rock promontory.
Once a stronghold for the Moors, the medieval village is notable for its Hispano-Arabic origins. After the Moors were driven out in the 12th century, Sortelha became a strategic part of the Portuguese empire in protecting its eastern border. In the string of fortresses, Sorthelha is the oldest and was the first castle built south of the Côa River.
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