Monumental Rock, Monsanto, Portugal
Perched high above a patchwork of olive groves and cork forests, a holy mountain juts 758 meters (2486 feet) from the surrounding plain. It’s a sacred playground overlooking neighboring villages where naughty gods once used huge granite boulders as their croquet pieces, and left them scattered, forgetting to clean up after themselves. Over the centuries croquet balls morphed into houses, and then into a village. Be brave and dine under tons of rock on wild boar at the Restaurante Petiscos e Granitos, then siesta under a slab the size of a truck. Nobel Prize laureate Jose Saramago said it all when he insisted, “The traveler thinks he has seen stones of every type, that is until he sees Monsanto.
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Originally published on Trazzler
