Winter walk to La Preciosa

One of our favourite walks from Montanchez village to Manfred's olive grove, La Preciosa. It's about 3kms across the sierra on a high slope looking down on Arroyomolinos. It feels like the end of the world, perfect peace and beautiful views. The olive grove is ancient with wonderfully knarled olive trees and a few old fig trees, surrounded by intricately layed stone walls, it's a special refuge and often our picnic spot.
Today the clouds were lying low in the valleys but up above the sun was really bright and warm, the sky a gorgeous luminous blue.

A trip to Estremoz in Portugal for the Saturday market

It only takes one and a half hours heading west into Portugal to reach the beautiful old market town of Estremoz. Every Saturday morning there is a wonderful market selling  delicious local products and fresh fresh fruit and vegetables, the range of cheese is particularly interesting, all from local producers.

 Besides the food market is a big area of bric-a-brac, some fascinating vestiges of past times and a great place to people watch, many of the stall holders are traditional Portuguese gypsies, amazing faces peering out of deep black clothes.

Estremoz is one of the marble towns of the Alentejo region, there are huge quarries dotted around the countryside amongst the olive groves. The architecture in Estremoz encorporates marble in all its forms and colours, the pavements are a kaleidescope of geometric patterns, there are spacious praças and stately houses with the roads getting more narrow up towards the castle which dominates the whole town.

 It's a real delight strolling around this walled town, great little cafes and restaurants everywhere. We had a jolly lunch with old friends at the solidly old fashioned Cafe Alentejana serving traditional dishes and the famous Alentejano wines.  The food is served in clay dishes, delicious but the most wonderful thing was the bread, baked in big loaves with natural unbleached flour, we can't get anything like this in Extremadura.

We stopped on the way home to stock up on some superb wines. A lovely day out in Portugal.