Grotto

Monsanto

This shelter is a rustic structure previously used as a pig sty, and today a picaresque tourist point, that results from the open space at the base of various rocks. In the popular architecture, it is common for these large rocks to be integrated into the constructions. Many times they serve as walls, finished off or natural, or they are partially used for a roof. At the top of Rua do Castelo, for example, we find a house completely overed by a colossal rock formation, designated here as “a house with a single tile”. The popular architecture, traditional, spontaneous and organic, is implanted on the topographical irregularities and mixes with the hard outcroppings and granite rocks, demonstrating an identity all its own, with architectural and material solutions well adapted to the rugged geography, but ill-advised for today’s ideas of comfort.