In the 'town' of Pisões, with its typically Roman architecture arranged around a peristyle (central courtyard surrounded by columns), you are bound to feel that you have been transported back to the beginnings of time, and you will start to imagine what everyday life was like for the residents, what hands touched these walls, what feelings moved them.

These ruins, one an important centre for supplying 'Pax Julia', as Beja was called from the first to the fourth century, reveal what is known as the 'pars urbana', the residential quarters. The 'pars rustica' and the 'pars fructuaria', where the workers' quarters and granaries and tanks were located, are still unexcavated.

Farm workers discovered the villa by chance in 1967. The mosaic floors in the most important of the forty rooms of the 'pars urbana' - monochrome and polychrome, with geometric or naturalist motifs - are themselves a sufficient reason for visiting Pisões. The town is situated in the Herdade de Algramaça, a few kilometres from Beja.

In the neighbouring area, be sure to visit the Roman dam, once essential for maintaining the very fine baths - which include a very well preserved hypocaust (underground heating system) -, and the remarkable Olympic-sized swimming pool.