Organic Farm Stays: Beja (2023)

Herdade dos Grous, near Beja, Alentejo, Portugal, is a 5 Star luxury hotel on a 1700-acre organic farm estate that produces award-winning wine and olive oil and has an outdoor swimming pool in the extensive gardens, and an artificial lake on the farm. THE ACCOMMODATION: They have a range of top-class suites and rooms, all of them with private bathroom, minibar, WiFi, and satellite TV, plus the suites have a spacious seating area with an open fireplace. There is a high-quality restaurant and bar on site which serves the finest local food plus all of their own award-winning wines, and a snack bar open throughout the day. Or guests can entertain themselves by playing tennis on the estate’s courts, playing billiards, table tennis, or going for a swim in the pool followed maybe by a visit to their sauna where massages are available for an extra fee. THE FARM: This huge estate has a fully working farm, breeding Alentejo cattle, merino sheep, and of course horses. They provide horse riding lessons and guided trails around the estate and the surrounding countryside, which you can also tour by bike with bike rental available at the hotel. They have extensive vineyards and olive groves too, that allow them to produce their own Herdade dos Grous award-winning branded wines and olive oil. Guests are welcome to tour the estate and the winery and to take a look at the production of the wine and olive oil, along with tasting sessions of both. Much of their produce goes into their wonderful meals and you can also buy some to take home from their on-site farm shop. THE LOCATION: The farm stay is just south of Beja in the centre of Portugal’s Alentejo region. Alentejo is the country’s undoubted rural heartland and is particularly famous for its cork and wine. The cork trees here actually produce half of the world’s supply and its wines though still not completely mainstream are growing in popularity, and its wine tourism industry has also been developing quite rapidly in recent years, with the help of estates like Herdade dos Grous. The region is not on the mainstream tourist trail, READ MORE