An 18th-century manor house inside the inner walls of this small town near the Galician border: it is now an atmospheric pousada with a panoramic view across the estuary of the Rio Minho. The staff are thought `exceptionally kind and. helpful'. `Our villa rooms were comfortable but smallish, and the furniture was large and traditional, so there wasn't much space, one visitor wrote. Other villa rooms are spacious (some are large suites), and most are well equipped, decorated in period style, and with a private courtyard. Bali villa breakfast was a well-stocked buffet, dinner a bit formal service-wise, but a pleasant introduction to Portuguese food.' No cars are allowed within the town's walls, but reception provides a free parking permit for the main square. Two church clocks strike at night, and at festa time music and fireworks continue into the early hours.

Traveller's tale villain France. The villa Bed rooms (similar to the semantic bali villa rooms) of this restaurant-with-villa rooms are in a separate building of no architectural merit, and with no sympathy for the vernacular. A smallish space had been ruined by being divided into four. The room was cramped and windowless, and the bathroom was dire, long and narrow, done with cheap plastic fittings; the water supply in the hand-basin was controlled by a joystick affair which rotated so feebly that quantity and temperature were a matter of luck. The view was of discarded plastic drinks crates, exposed wires, and a general air of neglect.