A very well preserved (too well for my taste) historic village, surely deserves to be visited, but, differently from, for instance Óbidos, a well preserved but lively town, Sortelha resembles a dead town.
Here and there we see someone using tourism to make business, but all the place seems a standing stone exhibition, that I felt cool and almost counterfeit.
It isn’t, really, but it misses life, in my opinion.
The Castle
Too “dead”, for my taste (what a contrast with Óbidos), the town, stands inside the castle, and this one needs no life to show its defensive solutions, with large walls, and narrow doors.
After almost 800 years, it has changed position with people: It doesn’t protect people anymore, but started being protected by them.
The town
After visiting, one doubt I took from there: Is it almost abandoned as it seems, or the life that still stands, is carefully hidden to preserve the ancient look of the place?
At least, I think that tourism would justify a little more of human evidence, but the place deserves a look!
Rural People
Opened to tourism, most visible people are tourists (not many, when we were there).
The few people that seems to keep on living in place is aged people, with the sympathy and simplicity of rural gents.
That’s maybe, the best in the fading Portuguese inland – there’s no artificiality in those manners!
