Visit the Typical Village of Azinheira - Benquerenças

The typical village of Azinheira, located in the parish of Benquerenças, consists of a small house of small size, mostly in ruins, of one or two floors, predominantly the construction in shale. The houses are distributed along two paths that cross north and east-west. The landscape around the village is composed essentially of pines, holm oaks, birches, olive trees and holly trees. There is a close relationship that architecture maintains with the natural environment, which is mainly responsible for the supply of raw materials that served to build the buildings.
The materials used in the roofs are the straw roof tile, the schist slabs and the stem, and shale was also used in the construction of walls and in the walls of the dwellings. In the elaboration of the walls were also used rolled stones that appear interspersed with blocks of shale arranged horizontally, which were then mortared with red clay collected in the place.
The facades usually have an access door and one, or more windows.
In the interiors of some dwellings, usually in low light, the common room with a nook to the fireplace area where it was cooked on the floor stood out. Aldeia da Azinheira, like so many others in the area of ​​Beira Baixa, was marked by a life with a great sense of community, still remaining vestiges of elements very important for the subsistence of the population that once lived here like the well, the source and the oven.