Portugal is a country of strong contrasts. It’s, today, a country with a vastly over urbanized sea coast, and with a mostly inhabited interior.

But, and that’s what I find more interesting, it’s a country with villages very closed (every house is built next to another house), and villages where every house have it’s own space.

Even for those who know Portugal, this may be one aspect that get’s unnoticed for a long time. And for those few who notice this, most don’t really know/understand why there are this difference between villages anatomy. It’s even more interesting when you notice that two villages close by – across a small river one from the other, for instance – can have this curious difference in construction.