A castle-free day - in the mountains

 Yesterday we left the Alentejo  region and headed into the Beiras and in particular Parque de Estrela Natural park which has Portugal's highest mountain at 1993m.  On the way we stopped at a couple of small but interesting villages:

 

Roman ruins at Idanya-a-velha.  Town population:58

maybe only 57 now as an ambulance carted one away while we were there

Lots of stork nests - even glimpsed a baby stork

 

Monsanto - voted the most Portugese town in Portugal

Houses are built into the rock as you can see

Location is high on a hill with the mandatory castle above

 

at Monsanto castle

 

the women did an 11 km walk today with 600m of ascent

A friendly goat-herd obliged for this photo

 

lots of yellow about - not sure what species

 

on the way back - Manteigas village in the background

meanwhile John and Graeme drove to the 

highpoint for good views