Description: Monchique,
accommodation (9665) property for sale (1114) land for sale (1042) villa rentals (340) tourist information (234) buying property (42) holidays in algarve (8) holidays in portugal (5) ruins for sale (2)
Traffic lights have recently been sprinkled liberally where previously there were none along the main road between Portimao and the hillside town of Monchique. They are not just any old traffic lights. They aim to regulate speed at 50 kph through the villages rather than control road intersections – and they are powered by solar panels. A pertinent sign of the times, you could say.This may be the last bastion in the Algarve of mule carts and moonshine aguardente, but things are changing in the Monchique hil
The Serra de Monchique is still the old Algarve, touched but not overtaken as elsewhere by modernity, tourism and spreading development. Its robust old-fashionedness is the very thing that draws expatriates to visit and to settle.
It is the peace and quiet, the pervasiveness of the evergreen environment, the airy spaciousness, the friendliness of the people, the social simplicity and the slow pace of life, with or without traffic lights, that is so appealing. Even the climate is milder and more equable than down by the coast, and it is not as cloudy or wet as the plain-dwellers sometimes make out. Frost in low lying areas, particularly coastal areas make for some slippery early mornings, not so in the Serra de Monchique, winters are