Portugal’s Hidden Side: A Journey Through Its Abandoned Villages
Hello this is Ismail of Europe Diary. Today I am talking about ” The sad empty side of Portugal” Let’s start our today’s blog
Portugal isn’t a large country. This country, which is practically the same size of huge engineer in Brazil, is known more for its main cities like Porto and Lisbon. But if you draw a line on its engines, you see places that people know more, which is the places on the green side of the map. But Portugal’s interior is very little known and worse and it’s very little habitat.
So in this video, I traveled through the interior of this country visiting isolated villages in the mountains, showing places that even resemble Swiszland, but also entire places completely abandon—a sad side of this country. So what are people doing in these villages? Like this Portuguese who bought half of a village for a very good price and is reconstructing the whole place and much more. So, welcome to another video and don’t forget to subscribe.
Our Journey Begins in Armmeda
And our journey begins in this village called Armmeda. I found it very cool because this village has this star shape. When you view from above, a lot of people know Portugal by the coast cities like Lisbon, Porto, Braga, de Algarve. But people forget about the inland of Portugal, and this area is really different from the coast. Here, you have way less people, a lot of abandoned villages, and a lot of different villages like this one. And the entrance of this village is quite different and very beautiful. Look at that. You have all these gates really high up, and this—I think there used to be like water here underneath—and you have all these cannons as well for protection. Because this place is only nine kilometers from Spain, this star shape was made to protect the village from attacks. The enemy would have nowhere to hide, and there would be no blind spots.
And first thing you notice is, first, really pretty village, but second, it’s really empty. Look, there’s no one there. On the other street, there’s no one. Behind me, no one. Over there, no one. So yeah, this is life in here—empty, quite peaceful actually—and look how pretty different that is. They write the number on the walls like 1, 2, 3, four, and entering this village, you can see how old but well-preserved it is. There are many places like this in the interior of Portugal. It’s a very complete place. It has post office, pharmacy, hotel, library. But you can tell that life there is really calm. That’s why young people end up going to big cities or even going to other countries. That’s why Portugal has the highest immigration rate in the whole of Europe. Calm life. If you like this lifestyle, northern Portugal is for you.
A Swiss-Like Experience in Portugal
Here, there are many mountains like, for example, Sehaairela, which even has snow every year. And there we found Pion, a village that looks like it’s from the Swiss Alps. Welcome to Pico. It was not very easy to get here. A lot of roads going up and down, but yes, it’s very worth it. Look at this place. Look at this landscape. All this house is like the roof, it’s all made with slates. It’s like those Swisland villages in the middle of the Mont valley, with this river passing by. I’m amazed how everything is made by the same material all the way to the top and also the floors. And look at the size of this door. You have to be on your knees to get into the houses, seriously. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. The funny thing is, walking through this village, I met some Portuguese who also live in Porto. Talking to them, I mentioned that it was really close to get to this village for me—like two hours and a half is really close—but for them, two hours and a half is super far away. So it’s funny to see what’s close or not for certain people.
This is something I like about these mountain villages, like Switzerland. You have all this water coming from the mountain, the purest water you’re gonna ever drink in your life. Instead of buying water in the supermarket, you get this one for free, and it’s even better.
What I liked about these village are the prices. In this village of Omega Eda, I had a very good lunch with wine, dessert, and half chicken for only ten euros each. And here in Peyton, I found it funny because I ordered coffee and Edda ordered a glass of wine, and the glass of wine was cheaper than coffee, costing only 80 cents.
The Sad Reality of Abandoned Villages
Alright, we’ve seen some very beautiful villages so far, but this doesn’t reflect the reality. In Portugal, there are many villages that are semi-empty or even abandoned. In my research, I found this village called Kve Du Much because it has been abandoned for over 50 years. It was put up for sale, but I think no one bought it because it remains abandoned.
Right after hours on the road, there’s no more road, as you can see. We are in the middle of these treadmills, wind wheels. Windmills. They say wind wheels over here, super cold in the middle of nowhere, nothing here around—just small villages far away. But let’s go to this last village called Covid de Mooch, a couple of meters down there. Let’s see.
It’s been a few minutes. I’ll be walking, that’s the windmill over there. It’s quite hard to walk on these stones over there. There’s a sign for a “santuario” like a sacred place or something, and you can start to see the houses. I just got to the sacred place. It’s just a stone that you can see the view. Man, places like this can be very spiritual and stuff.
Abandonment and Opportunity
Abandoned village—why was this abandoned, you know? Let’s go and check it out. So, welcome to Kvelo Dumont. It’s a place that has been 50 years since no one lives here, and that’s why they put this place for sale—the whole village on the market. I saw some news that it was four million euros. Another news said it was like one million. I don’t think it’s worth that much, but anyway, it’s a very apocalyptic-like scenario, like Machu Picchu. Yeah, let’s go check it out. I confess I was a little scared. I don’t know if I was afraid of spirits or crackheads, but right away, I saw that it is a very beautiful village. If you stop to think, this, with a renovation, would be an incredible village. I think now we are in the middle of the village. It goes down there, it’s a big village, goes down there all the way up there as well, where we came from, all these big houses made of stone.
And maybe there are some people that come here now and then because there’s some really fresh horse poop. Let’s go for them all. Let’s see. Walking around, I counted about 12 houses, and that’s a lot. If there were 12 families there, then it would be about 40 people living there. I wonder how this place became like this. They’re very good houses, and it’s a very calm and charming place. And if you saw this video and want to buy the village, I want my commission.
This idea of buying a village is a very good idea because, in my research, I found this guy’s video. He simply bought half a village with several houses for a value that I think is really good—100,000 euros. So I did an interview with him online to go. Yes tend to tend to, they pray and not to. Ask to Grand Pres. Pi Mont. To I’m going to proconci. Venlo, which retirement value per no. France Suisvi who evil the thissive some country with product a master value, yes, country, wood as means one thing.
Incredibly Low Land Prices
One thing I found really interesting in Portugal are the prices of these places in the interior. I have visited a plot of land of 1,000 square meters, and it was for sale for only 1,400 euros. Of course, the land was in a preserved area, so you can’t really build anything there, but you can build stuff that is removable. But 1,400 euros is really cheap.
I also visited another plot of land of 1,000 square meters as well, but it had a tiny home in that, a really small house on a very flat terrain for only 6,000 euros. And this is not hard to find—these prices really exist. You just have to access the websites here like OLX, Facebook Marketplace, or IT Lista to find these places, and this is not sponsored.
Portugal is much more than just big cities. There are many opportunities in the interior, which is also very beautiful as you can see, but unfortunately, it suffers from this abandonment. Well, this was the interior of Portugal, and I’ll see you in the next place.
