Fundão

The municipality

Castelo Branco

Fundão

The Municipality of Fundão (Castelo Branco, Portugal) is a territory of passage, of transposition between the North and the South interior, with physical, environmental characteristics and particular resources that conditions and will have conditioned, since ancient times, the way that Man has transformed it. The Serra da Gardunha delimits two morphologically distinct areas, the southern zone, of higher altitude, but which to the south and southeast of this mountain allows you to see a plain area and the northern half called Cova da Beira.

As a municipality, it only gained autonomy in 1747, but its occupation is millennial, as evidenced by its very rich archaeological, historical, architectural and intangible heritage.

In Fundão local products are evidenced by their history and tradition. The know-how, transmitted over several generations, leads to the development of genuine and high-quality products in a range of unique palates.

Biodiversity is also the guide for the discovery of unexpected and hopelessly stunning places that transport those who visit us to surprising beauty places, here you will feel connected to nature.

Its agrarian tradition, linked to the production of fruit, oil, wine and cheese, makes it an ideal area to discover its products and gastronomy.

All this creates a cultural heritage that entwines nature and history with landscapes of unique colours, which contain magical places full of forts, temples, castles, palaces and the enigmatic historical villages An area full of great surprises for those who visit, taste and enjoy it.

The cheese

In Fundão, different cheeses are produced, all marked by the character of the Serra da Gardunha, its pastures and its shepherds. They are artisan cheeses full of history and tradition, all of them based on Merino sheep’s milk and Charnequeira or Serrana goats.

• Cheeses from Beira Baixa PDO, yellow: produced with sheep’s and goat’s milk, and with rennet of animal origin. Cured cheese, semi-hard or semi soft pasta, has a yellowish tone, with an intense and clean flavour, slightly acidic.
• Cheeses from Beira Baixa PDO, spicy: produced from raw sheep´s and goat´s milk. It has an active and intensely pungent aroma, it has a greyish colour, semi-hard to hard paste.
• Cheeses from Beira Baixa PDO, Castelo Branco: produced from raw sheep’s milk. Cured cheese, semi-hard or semi-soft pasta, presenting a yellowish hue.

Different activities are held around the cheese culture as the Cheese Fair in Soalheira and the Chocalhos or Festival Caminhos da Transumância, in Alpedrinha.