In The Arrábida Natural Park, An 87 Hectare Estate With Two Houses, A Chapel, And A Ruin

In the Arrábida Natural Park, an 87-hectare estate with two houses, a chapel, and a ruin. The monks of Arrábida settled there in the 16th century for one simple reason: nowhere else along the Portuguese coast did the forest, the rock, and the sea come together so naturally.

That geography has not changed. The Natural Park, established in 1976, simply confirmed what the monks had realized four centuries earlier. On the hills between Rasca and Aldeia Grande, an 87-hectare estate features two inhabited houses, a chapel and its outbuildings, and a ruin whose future remains to be determined.