Fernando Namora, a Portuguese doctor and writer, practiced as a doctor for the municipality of Monsanto between October 1944 and October 1946. He wrote his last books in this Historic Village.


Fernando Namora was born on April 15, 1919, in Condeixa-a-Nova in the district of Coimbra. Although he received his medical degree in 1942, he became known as a writer. In 1944, the profession took him to Monsanto, where he lived in a house that stands to this day – a building dating back to 1931, with a stone front, like the architecture of the region.

Today, in the house where Fernando Namora once lived, we find a plaque with a quote from his work A Nave de Pedra (a book about the region and people of Monsanto): “In their final editing and composition phases, my last books were written in the village.”

The picturesque beauty of the Historic Village of Monsanto certainly must have inspired this writer’s works. For example, a peek into the book Estamos no vento from 1974 confirms this: “The land is Monsanto. Here I came, my perch of serenities, to further these pages. Friends say, challenging me with cosmopolitan apprehensions, that this is not the opportune place for a book that talks about a world that put time on the wind. Here, time does not move. I hope they are mistaken. What do urbanites know about the changes in the old days of their country?”

Poets, writers, or painters: There is no doubt that the Historic Villages of Portugal – the first destination in a series at the global level and the first at the national level to receive BIOSPHERE DESTINATION certification – inspire and captivate everyone. Villages that fill our hearts with enchantment and serenity.