Crowned by a castle set in a formidable rocky set at 760 m altitude, Sortelha maintains its medieval feature in the architecture of its granite country houses.
It was part of the important defensive line of border castles, mostly built or rebuilt on casters of ancient Iberian civilizations and its name derives from the terrain configuration on rugged cliffs surrounding the village in the shape of a ring the walls were also built in a circular shape.
Castle of Sortelha - Source
Castle of Sortelha - Source
The entrance is through a gothic door over which you can see a balcony, with openingsthrough which all sorts of projectiles were launched at the attackers. Before the entrance, a beautiful pillory deserves attention, topped by the armillary sphere, symbol of D. Manuel I and the building where the Town Hall was located, both from the time of that king.
At the jamb of another door, facing west, two grooves in the stone represent metric measures (the largest, a "rod" and the smallest a "cubit"), which served as a benchmark for medieval traders at a time when systems metrics were not standardized.
In the mother church of the century. XIV, there is an interesting work of the Hispanic-Arab ceiling, and the golden carving of the main altar, added in the baroque era.
The charm of this village lies in its medieval atmosphere, where the houses all built of granite stone and usually single storey, are grounded in rock and follow the topography of the land. Outside the walls grew another modern village, unfortunately in uprooted architectural patterns of tradition.
Around Sortelha the landscape has the rugged beauty of the large granite boulders and the accompanying chestnut woods. In the town of Casteleiro, on the road to Belmonte, was the medicinal resort of Radium Waters, which were considered among the most radioactive in the world.
You can also make a healthy walking route following the ancient Roman-medieval road, where pilgrims passed to Santiago de Compostela.
Two interesting villages line up about 20 km from Sortelha and are undoubtedly worth a visit: Belmonte, towards the west and Sabugal, to the north.
To the Southeast, lovers of green tourism have available in the Serra da Malcata Nature Reserve paths for observation of flora and fauna in a landscape rich in Mediterranean forest relics.
The Iberian lynx is the symbol of the Reserve. Very fleeting and suspicious creature, prefers the hiding of the woods, so it will take a lot of perseverance to see it.
