Why you should leave Lisbon for the rough-hewn Alentejo on your next trip to Portugal

Have you heard that Beyoncé has bought a cottage in Shropshire? No? That may be because it’s not true. But the story is only slightly less likely than one that is: Madonna has a farm in the Alentejo region of Portugal.

As ever, the Queen of Pop is riding a fashion wave. Pre-pandemic, there was a mini-boom in Americans snapping up properties in Portugal’s biggest, most rural and least-visited region. They come here on cycling and walking holidays, then return to hunt houses. They love the low prices, the low taxes, the food and the wine. Everyone is friendly, and most of them speak English.

And maybe Alentejo plays to a very back-to-the-land American narrative: it has wide-open spaces, not many people and a stuff-you attitude to anything that comes out of central government. An Alentejo friend told me he went to pay his taxes at the local office and the official happily spent an hour showing him how to get away with paying less to her bosses in Lisbon.

For the past six or seven years, the Portuguese tourism people have been pushing the bucolic delights of the Alentejo, having gotten over their “Europe’s West Coast” thing, where it was all Algarve, Lisbon and a little Porto for afters.

So you’d drive south or inland from the capital, stay in some basic but nice pousada, eat in rustic restaurants and try not to get sunburnt (it gets up to 40 in the summer).

What the Alentejo lacked was a really stand-out rural resort. Now it has one.

Driving there with friends from Estoril, I’d forgotten how empty the Alentejo is: miles after mile of boulders, olive groves (1,500 sq kms of them), reddish earth. You’re put in mind of Puglia or Andalucia. But last time I was here I chose to compare the place to rural Australia. I returned with the slightly uneasy feeling that I’d been exaggerating for effect. But no, here it was again: that empty, expansive not-quite-farmland, the big skies, the gum trees and yes, the red earth. It took me straight back to Bendigo or Murwillumbah and at dusk I half expected to see some kangaroos nibbling the dry, scrunchy grass.

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It takes a town like Evora to bring you back to European reality: whitewashed houses gusseted into the hill, every other shop selling pastries, the perfect remains of a Roman temple at the top of the town. (Why “perfect”? Because it’s not important or big enough to make you feel you should spend three hours there with a guide.)

Our hotel is 50km beyond Evora. This is wine, cattle, olives and back-breaking country. When Sao Lourenco do Barrocal was built, 200 years ago, Britain had already been through its agrarian revolution. But here, they did things the old way, In these montes, as they’re known, the local chief owned the farm and his tenants – as many as 50 families – clustered around the big house.

A revolution did come, eventually. After the death of Salazar, perhaps the dullest dictator of all time, his authoritarian government was eventually overthrown in 1974. The incoming socialist government collectivised the montes. But as the country shifted back to the centre ground, so the family eventually reacquired its own 7.8 million square metres of ground in the country.

It was Jose Antonio Uva, the eighth generation of the family, who has created the 21st century Sao Lourenco. He is one of those handsome young European upper class men who has never knowingly done up the top two buttons of his shirt. But he is clearly a serious, determined and even visionary fellow.

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His architects have recreated the “village” layout, with a cobbled main street running past the reception and rooms. The cowshed is a restaurant, the old winery – a winery again. The original buildings and grounds were created from local materials: eucalyptus trees, granite and schist. They’ve kept strictly to that list of materials. The result is pared-down, rough-hewn Iberian chic: not a crowded hotel category.

Sao Lourenco is one of those destination hotels where you don’t feel the need to stray much beyond its borders. There’s quite a lot within them: cycling down empty tracks through the olive groves, paying a visit to 300-year-old olive trees and Iron Age tombs.

But stray you must, or should. The largest artificial lake in Europe, the Alqueva Dam, is a short drive away. And the property is overlooked by the ancient white hilltop town of Monsarraz. There’s another mini history here, this time the epic kind: Romans, Visigoths, Mozarabs and Jews all found a home where the hunters and gatherers had hunted, gathered and had a go at making their own Stonehenge.

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But the mountains of plains of Extremadura are just the other side of the lake, and it was the neighbouring Spanish who fashioned modern (as in post-1486) Monsarraz. Catholic church, bullring and inquisition house: there’s a lot of pain and death in these stones. And it’s not all historic: this part of the Alentejo is one of the last areas of Portugal where bullfighting is still legal.

That may put off some visitors, which would be a shame. With Lisbon firmly in the premier league of overtourism destinations, Portugal needs to spread the touristic love. Maybe local resident Madonna could write a song to promote her new home. She could call it, I don’t know, ‘Holiday’ or something.

Rooms at Sao Lourenço start from €237 per night, B&B

For more information about visiting Portugal, visit visitportugal.com/en