Day 3: October 3

We drive up to the highest point in mainland Portugal — the Serra da Estrela mountain. The elevation here is only 1,993 meters, but the car shows that it’s 1 degree above zero outside…. Small patches of snow and shards of ice lie scattered around. Very windy. Your body freezes instantly. Volchiy is delighted like a child, taking photos of everything, while I hide in the car.

Finally, somewhere at an altitude of 1600 meters, we drove out of the cloud. The world became visible. An amazing effect, as if you had wiped fogged-up glasses. There were even small clear patches in the sky.

And we are heading further to an interesting place — an abandoned hotel.

The history of this hotel begins at the start of the 20th century. It is said that a Spanish count, Don Rodrigo, cured his daughter of a serious skin disease with water from this area. That was when he came up with the idea of building a spa hotel here. News of the miracle water spread quickly. People came here to treat various ailments — rheumatism, skin diseases, gastrointestinal problems, etc. It is said that at first no one could understand what was so special about the local water, and only later was it discovered that it was rich in radium. It is hard to believe now, but back then Europe was swept by a wave of radium popularity. Miraculous properties were attributed to it. Water enriched with radium was sold in pharmacies. And the hotel offered a variety of water-based treatments — thermal baths, compresses, and water cleansing of the body.

However, with the onset of the Second World War, the true properties of radium became understood. Due to the devastating effects of the atomic bomb, radioactivity turned from a miracle into a curse. The end of this hotel’s glory was inevitable. Soon after the war, the hotel declared bankruptcy. In 1985, the hotel building was bought at auction; the new owner had a plan to restore the building by opening a 5-star hotel here. However, for reasons unknown, these plans were never meant to come to fruition… And the once majestic building is inexorably crumbling….

Next, our route takes us to the town of Monsanto. To be honest, I didn’t expect to like it so much. It turned out that the town is located on the slope of a mountain strewn with huge stone boulders. We managed to park the car successfully at the entrance to the town, on a small patch right by a persimmon tree. I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve seen a persimmon tree :)

First we climb uphill along narrow streets; even here it is already clear how the town has fit itself between the stone giants.

Then we emerge onto a plateau where stone boulders are scattered chaotically. We wander among them. There are almost no people. From the mountain, there is a beautiful view of the surrounding area. The weather is wonderful. At last, it is warm and sunny. Right here on the plateau, a small castle is also skillfully blended into the landscape.

It’s getting dark. We head back down to the car. We drive down the mountain to the nearest larger town with a hotel. We still haven’t sorted out where to stay for the night. It’s Saturday today, and all the hotels within a 200 km radius are sold out. It’s hard to believe… As it turned out later, Monday, October 5, is a national holiday in Portugal. Apparently all the Portuguese went traveling for the three-day weekend.

The only place where we can spend the night is a hotel with very bad reviews. But we have no choice, so we go for it… We arrive in the town of Castelo Branco when it’s already completely dark.

The hotel looks depressing. As soon as you walk in, you can smell age and mustiness. It seems the building was renovated a hundred years ago. At the reception sits an old man, about 90 years old at first glance. He is helped by a young African man — everything rests on this guy. We are given the room keys, and up the gloomy staircase in the dark we go to our room. The room reeks terribly of sewage. The window faces the inside of the building, onto the stairwell — there’s no way to air it out.

I panic at a room like this, even though I thought I was pretty hardened in that respect. We leave our things and go for a walk. Volchiy believes I just need a little time to adjust.

The town is nice. There are almost no people at this hour, orange lamplight, a beautiful main square. In the square, on one of the trees, some birds are screaming loudly. They can’t be seen, but by the noise it seems there are hundreds of them. Volchiy assumes they are parrots. We wander through the town’s little streets and eventually end up back at our hotel.

In the room, we turn on the table lamp — its pleasant warm light hides the horror of the room and fills it with coziness. It even becomes bearable. We decide to have dinner — sandwiches with meat and mozzarella.

After dinner, Volchy works a little, and I try to plan the next day. Around midnight, Volchy says, “There are really bedbugs in the mattress here! There are a lot of bedbugs here.” Big bedbugs are crawling across the bed without a care in the world (they’re definitely them, because literally about 10 minutes ago I was reading an article about them). At first, we only notice the bedbugs on Volchy’s mattress. But soon they appear on mine too.

I jump out of bed. Shake out all the things. Get dressed again. Quickly gather everything we managed to take out of the suitcase. I brew tea in the thermos. We rush out of the room. We’re leaving. The clock says 12:20. A new day has already begun….