Rodo Farm Retreat

Modern, New Villa with a Pool in Rural Alentejo

Located on a verdant hillside with resident sheep, this newly reconstructed garden villa with its pool offers minimalist modern design in the pastoral Alentejo back country. Located on the site of a former convent entrance house, the updated property has room for eight guests across its four bedrooms and four and a half baths, and a thoroughly contemporary vibe. The modern country villa is bright and spacious, with breezy, open plan common areas, a pretty garden and lazy pool terrace, and it even comes with a woolly herd of sheep out back, tended daily by a local herder.

An elegant, yet unassuming space for families or groups of friends ready to embrace slow living, the minimalist home offers 6,000, sparkling square meters for unwinding. Given its proximity to Estremoz (20 minutes) and the Maranhão Dam (14 minutes), it makes a great base for cyclists, especially those eager to explore Alentejo wine country and the region’s olive grove-blanketed hills.

Around

Facing the small village of Cano, and backed into the rolling countryside, this rural property is located in Portugal’s Alentejo region, land of olive oil, cork oak trees (cork production), citrus, and wine. The southern Portuguese region’s coast has become relatively well known with the rise in popularity of Comporta and Melides in recent years, but its inland countryside is far lesser-traveled. Endless fields of wheat, twisting terracotta-toned cork oak trees and vineyards cover the area set between the Rio Tejo and the gentle peaks of the northern Algarve and east to the Spanish border. The region is characterized also by hilltop villages, many medieval, and dotted with historic “white cities” recognized by their vivid stacked residences often surrounded by old walls and towers. Nearby Estremoz is a historic “white city,” with an impressive dungeon and equally remarkable deposits of white marble that double the reason for the town’s moniker. Estremoz marble is some of the world’s most famous stone, and extraction sites surround the village as do vineyards and olive groves. Estremoz was once home to Portuguese royalty, and also offers numerous monuments and heritage sites to visit, from its medieval gates into the village, its castle, convent, tower and churches and chapels. Wine lovers should visit vineyard tasting rooms and also stop into tasting sites for local honey and olive oil. Adventure seekers come to the area for cycling, as well as rafting, hiking, and canyoneering in the Ribeira da Seda. The larger city of Évora some 60 kilometers or so from the villa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a Roman Temple and the fascinating Gothic-styled Cathedral that contains a Chapel of Bones, a stunning architectural site where skulls, femurs and humerus bones take the place of frescoes and tile inlays. Another city worth exploring is Marvão, situated on the highest peak fo the Serra de São Mamede, a place of narrow alley-like streets topped by a medieval castle with 360-degree views of the surrounding countryside.

Location

Nearest Airport: Lisbon, approximately two hours

Best Time to Visit: March to October