Monte Do Zambujeiro

O lugar é incrível, um reduto de paz e natureza. Atendimento espetacular.

Monica and her staff are wonderful, the property is beautiful, quiet and peaceful. Breakfast is delicious and generous. For us, after 3.5 weeks of busy travel this was a perfect location to chill. We hung out during the day at the beaches, returned to shower and go back to town for dinner. It’s only 12 min to town/beach. Great place to stay, highly recommend!

Endroit très calme, en pleine nature. Très bon petit déjeuner, personnel disponible et n’hésitait pas à nous recommander restaurants et endroits à visiter.

There has always been a swampy sadness for me about these riparian landscapes such as the traveler finds at this bend of the Rio Mira. In this case, the Monte do Zambujeiro offers little to lift his mood. Perhaps Jose Saramago would have found a kernel here with which he could identify the "real" Alentejo as he made his way to Portugal early in the post-Salazar times. But today the traveler is greeted with a tired bed, a restaurant only open by special arrangement, and a hospitality that one may courteously describe as perfunctory and transactional. The traveler and his companion were reminded more than once of the check-out time (11 a.m.) and were careful to depart at 10:50 a.m. both to make the point and to be spared being tossed out like used linen. Others chasing the ghost of Portugal's literary Nobelist around the country may choose to stop and stay here, but this traveler will pass on doing so again, instead making his way on to a more comfortable place at which he and his companion may lay there weary heads. It takes the fullness of time to create a property that is memorable and worth visiting; it need not be the work of generations to provide a warm and generous hospitality.