10 villages in Portugal - 3 days to discover unique places

There are places where silence isn't absence - it's presence. Where the light has depth, where time bends into slower rhythms and where the mountains seem to want to protect those who live there. The villages of Portugal, in the centre of the country, have this gift: to bring us closer to the essence of things. 

Without haste or exuberance, but rather with subtlety, humanity and stories that reveal themselves at the pace of those who decide to explore slowly.

For three days I travelled through 10 Schist Villages, Mountain Villages and Historical Villages of Portugal, on a journey that wasn't just geographical. 

From Aigra Nova to Marialva, passing through Talasnal, Cerdeira, Fajão, Alcongosta, Alpedrinha, Castelo Novo, Alvoco das Várzeas, Aldeia de Cabeça (Christmas Village). I discovered communities that resist with creativity, resilience, tradition and a deep connection to the land, customs and simple things.

The roads narrow, the hillsides are coloured a dense green and the schist houses are a reminder of another time. Portugal's villages around the Lousã, Açor, Gardunha and Estrela mountains aren't just film sets - they're the main characters. 

Schist Villages - between the pulse of past and present 

In the Schist Villages, you have to slow down to listen to the silence and then take a deeper look at the territory. This is how the centre of Portugal reveals itself - slowly, subtly and with great honesty. 

In Aigra Nova - where I started this journey - I discovered that schist isn't just construction - it's community memory. In Talasnal, it can be that and also beauty, balance and harmony. In Cerdeira, I found a capacity for rebirth through art and dedication. In the village of Fajão, the Serra do Açor imposes itself on a different scale, wider, more vertical, more rugged. And there we are much closer to the stars.

These villages show how schist and granite - hard, cold and inanimate materials - are, in fact, the living fabric of a territory that has never stopped pulsating, even after more complicated times - as happened after the forest fires. In fact, these problems have given these places (and those who live there) all the more reason to welcome us (and welcome us they do!).

We could visit these villages in Portugal to, in some way, show solidarity with the people after the hardships that some areas have suffered. However, I insist, it's us who lose out if we don't stop by for a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks.

These are lands from the past, but very much alive today.

A network of schist villages to plant the future

The villages of Aigra Nova, Talasnal, Cerdeira and Fajão all belong to the same network, but each has a world of its own, moulded by community histories and innovative projects.

It was there that I began to realise something that stayed with me for the rest of the days: these villages didn't survive by some miracle. They resisted because the communities never stopped believing in them - even when many of their people left for the city or at other equally difficult and remarkable times.

Aigra Nova - Where the mountains take care of themselves from the inside

Aigra Nova is a small village, home to a total of... 18 goats and 3 inhabitants. One inhabitant and six goats for each of the village's three streets. 

However, this simplicity is deceptive. You only have to enter the Tree Maternity - where the forest is regenerated with the care of those who plant the future - to realise that here nature is not just landscape: it is responsibility. 

From the Tradições Ecomuseum to the trail linking the various mountain villages, everything in Aigra Nova speaks of caring: caring for the land, caring for memory, caring for each other.

I arrive in Aigra Nova with the feeling that the Lousã mountain range always has one more hidden corner to show. The village is small, but there's a community life that you can feel from the first contact. 

Talking to one of the villagers, I was surprised by his persistence - or stubbornness, from his son's point of view - in staying. Just a few days ago, on one of his regular visits, this man had been there on his day off chopping wood to keep his mother warm during the winter.

At the Aldeias do Xisto shop, the atmosphere reveals the care that the community takes with its village: well-stocked handicrafts, the scent of the mountains, conversations about what is done there and what still needs to be restored.

A few steps away, I discover Maternidade de Árvores, a remarkable and unique project in the entire Xisto network. Volunteers and locals take care of the forest without much talk, just with the strength of their hands and the urgency of the times. Between oak seeds, small cork oaks and strawberry tree seedlings, you realise how deeply practical and emotional the relationship with nature is here.

The Tradições Ecomuseum, just next door, completes this idea of a territory that doesn't just show off the past. It's a simple space, but it preserves rural memories: farming tools, everyday objects, stories that explain how people lived when the mountains were the centre of everything.

This time I didn't have time to walk the trails that connect the neighbouring villages. For example, the PR9 or the PR1.

I swapped hiking for tasting typical products such as sausages, tea produced in the region or the fantastic bôla, or meat bread - cooked over charcoal.

Talasnal - The aesthetics of the mountain as it is

If Aigra Nova is intense, the village of Talasnal is contemplative. A village that seems to fit into the mountain with the precision of someone who knows they've always belonged there. The schist streets, the small windows, the murmur of the mountains in the late afternoon - everything contributes to a sense of rare balance.

It's one of the most photographed villages in the Aldeias do Xisto network, but it still retains a silence of its own, a rhythm that doesn't change to please anyone. In Talasnal, time isn't measured by what we do, but by how we walk - even how we walk through the flavours on our plates.

The road that leads to Talasnal opens up in an alternating game of curves, shadows and lights filtered through the trees. Deer lurk around every bend. When the village appears - nestled on a slope overlooking the forest - you immediately realise why it is considered one of the most charming of the Schist Villages.

Fortunately for me, at Taberna do Talasnal, I'm challenged (and offer no resistance) to try (again and again) perhaps the best dish in the entire three-day tour of Portugal's villages: a (divine) chanfana. 

However, I still “indulged” in the local sausages, witches' mushrooms and the fantastic kid. I didn't have room for the Tiborna de Bacalhau, but (I'm told) I was wrong to give it up. That's one more reason to go back (as if I needed more reasons). 

Walking through the streets of Talasnal is almost like leafing through a photo album in which everything remains surprisingly alive. The small windows, the sturdy wooden doors, the uneven walls - everything seems to have been placed there with the precision of someone who knows that time deserves to be treated with kindness. From Talasnal, the view is breathtaking - especially in the late afternoon.

There are small shops, houses restored by new residents, and the usual Aldeias do Xisto shop, where the curation of products reflects the care that goes into the whole network. And that's where I can still taste an irresistible chestnut and almond talasnico, accompanied by a “potent” medronho da serra.

Cerdeira - creative rebirth in the heart of the mountains

If the village of Talasnal surprises with its photography and mountain gastronomy, Cerdeira impresses with its boldness. What could have been just another abandoned village has become one of the most interesting creative village centres in Portugal. 

I don't want to give it a tourist label, because you can really feel the creativity in the way each house has been restored, in the creative workshops that almost always take place against the backdrop of the mountains.

There was a time when it was just abandoned. Now, the village pulses with creative energy. Projects bring artists from all over, creative residences that bring life to the streets, the aromatic plants and the soul of the Japanese oven (and what a fantastic oven it is), 

Cerdeira is a perfect example of how interiors don't need to shrug their shoulders and look static as the years go by. Nor does it need to choose between tradition and contemporaneity.

Seeing this village reborn through art is a lesson in humility. It shows that culture can be as powerful a tool for transformation as agriculture or architecture.

The concept Cerdeira - Home for Creativity is the heart of this renaissance. There, artists from all over the world come to work in residencies that last for days or weeks, producing pieces that often remain part of the village. The School of Arts and Crafts offers programmes ranging from ceramics to writing.

The Sasukenei Oven is a kind of sustainable reinvention of traditional techniques and adds a constant perfume of experimentation to this village in Portugal. 

A few steps from the heat of the oven, António Carlos, a former music teacher, settled there decades ago. He gave up his staves and guitar chords to strum the seeds of the Schist Plant. This is a project that studies and cultivates plants and applies mountain cleaning techniques that guarantee sustainability and protect the village of Cerdeira from greater evils (such as forest fires).

Cerdeira is not just a pretty village. It's a manifesto that draws a distinct line: the interior can be contemporary without betraying the past. Here, art doesn't try to imitate the mountains - rather, it seeks a constant and lasting dialogue.

Fajão - The village where night becomes heritage

The journey takes a different turn when you reach Fajão, in the Serra do Açor. Here, the stone is rougher, the slopes more vertiginous, the silence denser. The sky seems to rest on the village with the naturalness of those who have always lived there. And perhaps that's why Fajão is part of the Starlight Tourist Destination, which recognises some of the purest skies on the planet.

Time was short and I only spent the day in the village of Fajão. Enough, however, to realise that here I entered a different landscape. The village is small, almost sheltered, as if it had grown into itself. 

It is, however, with the arrival of night that Fajão reveals its greatest treasure. This is one of the regions in the country where the night sky remains clear, deep and alive, almost immune to light pollution. 

At Geoscope - the interpretive centre linked to astrotourism - you quickly understand what a privilege it is to observe stars. On clear nights, the Milky Way can be seen with sublime clarity. 

During the day, when the weather allows sun observation (and it did). This experience adds a scientific dimension to the sensory one. Through telescopes, I see sunspots and details that remind us that, even during the day, the sky holds enough mysteries for a traveller and photographer (like me) to marvel at.

From the top of the mountain, it's not enough to look up, it's essential to also look down, in the direction of the village. There, the houses, the small church or the simple museum, between narrow streets and alleys, touch your soul. Fajão contrasts with other villages in Portugal (which are almost empty of people), as it is home to around 60 people - and there are several young people among the permanent inhabitants.

The sky is the main protagonist - from the Geoscope to Starlight astrotourism - but the landscape, the delicacies and the panoramic trails complete the experience.

I took advantage of my visit to the Schist Village of Fajão to try the filhoses puxadas. These traditional delicacies (and the olive oil cakes) are the result of an intergenerational tradition. The filhoses that I taste are brought to the streets of the village every year at Christmas time, during the festivities (or when the request is made), by the hands of Lurdes Batista. This well-established delicacy was once considered the “sweet of the poor” in the Pampilhosa da Serra area.

Mountain villages

The Mountain Villages in the centre of Portugal reveal another way of experiencing the mountains - less marked by the texture of the schist and more by the relationship between landscape, agriculture and community. Here, the mountain dictates time, not by its harshness, but by the cycles of the land, by the fruits that ripen slowly, by the people who continue to find in altitude a possible and fulfilling way of life.

In Alcongosta, this connection is evident. The village lives off what nature has to offer, especially the cherry, which here is much more than a product: it's identity, pride and heritage for the world. Alpedrinha, more stately, has a long and elegant history in stone. 

In Alvoco das Várzeas, the mountain meets the river in one of the most serene valleys in the centre of Portugal. But it's in the village of Cabeça that I find the most creative side of this territory.

Together, these Portuguese villages show that the mountains are not just geography - they are a way of life. A territory where the past lives on and where the future is imagined with feet firmly on the ground.

Alcongosta - The village where the cherry dictates the weather

The road continues through gentler hills, and the landscape begins to take on an agricultural flavour, punctuated by cherry groves that criss-cross the slopes in orderly lines. 

The orchards that line the hillsides show the care taken by those who work the land with patience and a delicacy only available to those who live under the pulse of nature. The cherry is more than just a product: it symbolises the perseverance of this valley. 

Alcongosta, known as the Cherry Village, has a sweetness that is visible even in its territory. Agriculture isn't subsistence - it's identity. The whole valley breathes to the rhythm of flowering, the harvest, the summer that sweetens the fruit and the autumn that paints the landscape with colour, lots of colour!

Alcongosta reveals the identity of a place that doesn't just fit into one fruit. In this village, in the municipality of Fundão, there are seasonal markets, harvest festivals and the stories of generations of farmers who have learnt to read the climate and the landscape with precision.

Alcongosta is in the orchards that stretch behind the houses, the walls that keep family secrets, and the way everything fits into the valley, as if the village has known it belongs there forever.

Alpedrinha - A stately break in the heart of the mountains

Alpedrinha's stately heritage can be seen in the stone manor houses and the imposing Palácio do Picadeiro. The village breathes a rare balance between rusticity and delicacy. It's easy to imagine other times - when travellers, merchants and nobles passed through the mountains.

The manor houses, fountains and old streets reveal a past where movement and relaxation met. It's a village with a discreet, unhurried charm - day and night, 

It's one of those places where it's worth sitting, talking or listening: listening to the water in the fountains, the voices echoing off the old balconies, or the murmurs of the locals.

It's a place that invites small discoveries: unexpected staircases and unspoilt corners. The mountain here is less rugged and more contemplative, as if Alpedrinha were a kind of cultural viewpoint over the deep interior. Try standing outside the Palácio do Picadeiro at the end of the day. You may find it hard to leave.

Aldeia de Cabeça - The village where Christmas is sustainable

As I drive down the access road to the village of Cabeça, in Seia, I enter one of the most interesting chapters of Portugal's villages. The village combines the best of the mountain landscape with the strength of a community that has learnt to reinvent itself. 

Every year, in mid-November, the village of Cabeça undergoes a major transformation: for a few weeks it becomes the Christmas Village. This project was born out of the local spirit and the desire to create something that was truly their own and not just another replica of the Christmas markets that are multiplying. Aldeia de Cabeça is creating one of the most genuine and sustainable Christmas festivals in Portugal.

The village's decorations are made from natural materials collected in the mountains - broom, caruma, pine cones, trunks, strawberry tree branches - and assembled by the villagers themselves. 

There are no plastics, no excessive lights, no materials that end up in the rubbish - they are returned to nature. 

What exists is a community spirit that is felt in the way each house gets involved in the preparation, how each alleyway comes to life, how the village is transformed without ceasing to be itself.

I arrive in the village of Cabeça precisely on the days when people are already hard at work preparing the decorations. At the entrance to the village, in a white house, six or seven women are cutting, hanging and decorating branches to a rhythm that fascinates me. Almost without blinking, they move in and out of the building.

If this community work fascinates me because of its rhythm and dedication, I feel that the occasion goes far beyond a Christmas party. It is the celebration of a community united by the will to demonstrate that tradition, innovation and collective spirit can go hand in hand - without artificial allegorical motifs. 

You're fighting waste, plastic, the copying of the same events everywhere - Christmas markets in countries, cities, towns, neighbourhoods and streets. From my point of view, we're fighting something even more important: the loneliness of the local inhabitants of an (almost) forgotten village.

What makes the village of Cabeça special is precisely this authenticity. Even outside of the festive season, it seems to embrace the valley. The way the community organises itself, creates events and welcomes visitors shows that the interior has a lot to teach (and the rest of the country a lot to learn).

Alvoco das Várzeas

Can the interior of the country be a space for new ideas? In Alvoco das Várzeas - one of Portugal's Mountain Villages - we believe so.

The Alvoco River meanders through the valley, the medieval bridge draws a perfect arch over the water and the houses are scattered across the hillside. The medieval bridge is a reminder of the place's antiquity, while the Co-operative Cowork @Aldeias de Montanha project aims to attract the future. 

The Cowork building has been restored and the interior is decorated with furniture made from local materials - such as burel and wood recovered from trees burnt by forest fires. The workspace (cowork) acts as a meeting point for remote workers, creators, entrepreneurs and travellers looking for a double connection: to the world and to nature.

There is a serene beauty to the riverside landscape, but there is also a contemporary energy that comes from those who believe it is possible to create, work and live well away from the big cities. It's an interior that's open to the world, that projects new ideas and that wants to show that it's possible to live and work in nature. 

The medieval bridge, the river and the riverside landscape are a must. As is Paragem 43, a small café by the river, where the jeropiga gives you a mild but unforgettable flavour. 

Men and women from the village, of all ages, sit there reading the newspaper, drinking a cuppa, contemplating the landscape or just socialising. I followed their example, after enjoying a jeropiga. Alvoco is living proof that villages are not just about the past - they can also be about the future.

Portugal's historic villages

Historic Villages have a particular way of welcoming us: not in celebration, but in silence. In Castelo Novo, that silence is made of granite.

Marialva, on the other hand, imposes itself more intensely. The elevated citadel, the walls cut into the sky and the empty intramural streets harbour a grandeur that needs no explanation.

Castelo Novo and Marialva show two different ways in which time remains - one serene and orderly, the other monumental and epic. Both reveal how memory can be a landscape as powerful as the mountain itself.

Castelo Novo - the charm of medieval granite

Castelo Novo is one of Portugal's most beautiful historic villages. The central square - with the old Town Hall and the pillory - is one of the most harmonious in the country. As I walk up through the village, the medieval castle appears as a vibrant ruin and the walls reveal wide views of the Beira Interior valleys. 

Castelo Novo brings us a serenity that can be felt in the details: in the old doors that reveal marks of use, in the quiet squares, in the small old wine presses. The central square and the castle are the heart of the town, but this is a village in Portugal to get lost in, to take your time, to enter - without a map.

Marialva - the powerful silence of Portugal's villages

Every house, every square and every stone of Marialva Castle fits together in an almost natural balance. To walk through the streets, day or night, is to feel that the past has never gone away - it's just merged with the present. The beauty isn't ostentatious, it's subtle. 

My tour of the Villages of Portugal is coming to an end and I don't think I'll be surprised any more. But here I am in the village of Marialva. This historic village in Portugal was an important defensive and economic centre for the region, between battles, fairs, commercial transactions and everyday life.

I arrive in Marialva on an open road to a subtle plateau - just as the last rays of sunlight hit the granite. At the top, the citadel appears jagged. 

The castle, the walls, the granite houses: everything there seems to have been untouched for centuries. The lower part of the village, more inhabited and more recent, adds layers to the experience: churches, traditional squares, houses with flowered balconies and views that stretch to the horizon. 

In Marialva there is a deep silence that invites you to walk slowly and imagine the lives that have passed through these streets. And if there are villages that impress with their architecture, others with their location, others with their history - Marialva amazes us with all three attributes.

3 days in the villages of Portugal

Three days in the villages of central Portugal allowed me to see reinvented places, feel the contagious energy, listen to simple stories and savour real traditional cuisine (without unnecessary creativity). All this isn't just measured in photographs or kilometres travelled. What remains is the capacity to resist, to reinvent, to save and to create of these people from the interior.

The villages I travelled through look the same at times, but they are very different. These are places where identity isn't a museum piece, it's common practice. Where nature isn't a distant, intangible backdrop - it's a partner. Where community isn't an artificial concept - it's a real bond.

Day 1

Aigra Nova (Góis) | Talasnal (Lousã) | Cerdeira (Lousã) 

Day 2

Fajão (Pampilhosa da Serra) | Alcongosta | Alpedrinha | Castelo Novo

Day 3

Aldeia de Cabeça | Aldeia de Natal | Alvoco das Várzeas | Marialva

Note: This trip was made at the invitation of Turismo Centro de Portugal. All content was (and always will be) produced without any external interference.