the country's only medieval forum is here
Linhares is at 820 metres, on the western slope of the Serra da Estrela, clinging to a granite hill that the castle has crowned since the twelfth century. The charter dates from 1169. The village grew slowly in the shadow of the walls, and the granite of the current houses is, in large part, the same granite as always.
The climb to the castle is short but steep. Up there are two crenellated towers, the Torre de Menagem and the Torre do Relógio, and two cisterns that are still visible in the courtyard. The Mondego valley opens entirely from the parapet. It was the view that dictated the position.
The piece that sets Linhares apart from the other eleven Aldeias Históricas is the medieval forum in the Largo do Pelourinho: a small stone platform with benches around it, where the town's good men discussed community affairs. There's no other like it in Portugal. Next to it is the pillory with the Manueline armillary sphere at the top, and the Romanesque Igreja Matriz rebuilt in the seventeenth century, which holds three panels attributed to Grão Vasco. The old Judiaria, with the Casa do Judeu, marks the entrance to a nucleus that weighed in the village's inclusion in the network.
The rest is paragliding territory. Linhares calls itself the Cathedral of Paragliding, and in August, during the village festival, the sky above the serra fills with wings in an international festival. If you want the village in silence, pick another time of year. If you want to see it fly, that's exactly the week.
come prepared for
- walking up to the castle, with uneven ground and a short but demanding slope
- serious cold in winter, at 820 metres on a slope facing the serra
- looking for the forum platform in the Largo do Pelourinho, not at the castle
- arriving in August to a village much fuller than it seems the rest of the year
