Portugal: The rest of the story

From Óbidos we drove about 2 1/2 hours south (bypassing Lisbon) to a lovely farm stay just outside the town of Grândola (GRAHN-dooluh)—Herdade das Barradas da Serra, which roughly translates to Barred Mountain Estate. It’s a cork oak farm of some 1200 acres. We got there just at the end of the harvest which was quite interesting. They said it wasn't the best year because of dry conditions, making the cork bark more brittle and harder to harvest.

The property was great. Nice swimming pool, small restaurant for breakfast and dinners, hikes on the property for miles and golf courses nearby. Hooray.

For the golfers among us, we discovered a newly opened course called Terras da Comporta - Dunas Course, by one of our favorite designers, David McLay Kidd (his other works include Bandon Dunes, Gamble Sands, and Tetherow). We loved it! Staff were fantastic, gorgeous clubhouse and the course didn't let us down. Kind of like an inland links course winding through a forest of evergreens. Chatted with a gentleman at the bar who turned out to be the course superintendent —super nice guy who shared the very interesting story of how the course came to be.
We had the unique experience of being played through by two guys ~10 years older than Donny, both of whom crushed their drive from the tips 50 yards beyond Donny’s very respectable drive. Turns out, one of them was former pro Tommy Armour III, so Donny’s ego was restored. 😂

We found some great restaurants in the area and overall had a wonderful time. Did a day trip inland to the city of Évora. Took the back roads and both the journey and destination were well worth the time. We also did a side trip to Mafra National Palace. Well worth a visit. See Link

https://www.barradasdaserra.pt/

https://www.comporta.com/en/menu/golf/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Évora

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_MafraLæs mere