A new disc golf destination in Western Europe.
September 11, 2025 by Bogi Bjarnason in Travel
Having Amaral Carvalho behind the wheel is like sending a headwind drive into an island green. With his meaty throwing hand doing double duty on the shifting of the stick and the messaging of text, every twist and turn of the tight corridor roads that connect Alvaiázere in the valley to Marzugueira up in the hills is like an errant shot flirting with OB. In short, it’s an impending accident that has happened before.
Through the windshield, Portugal’s Valle D’Encanto stretches out before our eyes. The Enchanted Valley, in English, is a patchwork of 200 tiny parcels of land surrounding Carvalho’s family home that he purchased piecemeal. Together they form a mosaic of thorn bushes, multiple mandos, and crisscrossing dirt roads enclosed by electric fence and myriad gates. These trap an assortment of donkeys, goats, ponies, and enormous dogs in an enclosure. The dogs follow me around and sit at the business end of the tee whenever I endeavor to launch a drive, while the ruminants serve as no-cost lawnmowers. Sometimes the donkeys park themselves halfway down a tight fairway like witless spotters to a throw that will never come.
Once in Marzugueira, Amaral hands me the keys to the house he was born in a mere couple hours after I was born half an ocean away on the same day. This is where I’ll be staying for five days in total isolation, completely cut off from the outside world. These half dozen buildings form a community just large enough to be graced with a name yet not big enough to qualify as a proper village. They rest on the precipice of a deep and broad valley that, although removed from the tiny town of Alvaiázere by merely a mile or two, bears no hallmark of civilization other than a similar smattering of houses on a ridge across a sea of trees in the distance.
It’s a pristine canvas. This vast wonderland filled with all the hills, valleys and waterways a course designer could wish for paints a veritable tableau of massive signature holes that stretch into the deep rural distance.
First Round Feels
Christian Stenevinge is a Swedish expat and artist who found his way to this idyllic outpost over a decade ago, and in doing so putt his hobby of disc golf on indefinite hiatus until the sport finally found foothold around these parts less than five years ago. You would never believe so while making your rounds through the expertly developed property, but it has only been ;ess than a year since he pitched this project to Amaral over what I’m assuming was a steady stream of Super Bock pints.
León Blanco is a male model and personal trainer from Venezuela by way of Asturias. His vocabulary is limited to nothing but a mixture of “Puta madre!”, “Hijo de puta!” and “Maricón!” Once we finally manage to find his mute button, his sole means of communication consist of flipping the bird and flinging donkey dung. As the highest rated player on the Iberian peninsula, he is here as a comped promotional guest who drove down the six hours from northern Spain. I know León from a decade’s worth of playing disc golf in Oviedo. Christian and I met mere months ago at the Fuengirola Open in Mijas, Spain. These will be my practice round partners and cardmates for round one.
Christian is busy with meetings, so León and I are flying blind for the first full round.
The first five holes are a mix of short and long, up and down, mostly tight and sometimes chippy. In the interest of brevity, I will limit my commentary on these hors d’oeuvres holes and focus the bulk of text on the main course of the course.
From the tee of hole six, we venture into the meat of the meal. These are the main attractions, the reason you will one day cross an ocean.
This chewy chunk of distance and massive elevation shifts stretches to the green of 11 with a couple annoying little filler tracks in the shape of holes 7 and 10. Perched on the elevated platform of tee six, you will launch the most massive hyzer available to you into the abyss below. As you watch the disc flip to flat, you hope it makes a sweeping arc to the right while clearing the distant tree line and ultimately fading back into the unseen fairway far below without dumping into the left OB creek, overturning into the right fairway of seven (also OB), hitting a pregnant donkey (they are in season now), or tumbling down an ancient water well. If you manage all that and are not wedged up against a tree, a noodle arm like mine will stretch their normal 100 meters to an incredible 173 meters (yes, the drop is a doozy) and find a lie 51 meters short of the pin with a grove of trees in the middle distance too close to spike over. With an arm like León, you could stretch the hyzer arc round the right side of the grove and pitch up for an easy birdie. With elite arm talent, you could traverse the entire 224 meters in one massive shot.
Let’s not speak of seven, but turn our caddy book straight to chapter eight.
As you exit the domain of donkeys that are holes 6 and 7, you will make sure you close the gate behind you lest you wish to let the donkeys congregate with the goats or the ponies to frolic with the canines. From there we climb a small hill past a discarded long haul truck cab before arriving at the gate to holes eight and nine. From the eighth tee, us mere mortals will fire a controlled placement shot over a wall of trees and down a short incline. If you posses a capital A Arm, you will go for glory and aim for the near vertical wall looming in the far distance or even for the green. But big arm beware, if you fade out early the consequences may be dire.
This Par 4 features a green that sits perched upon a sill half a circle wide with a fairway (I use that term only in its most broad sense) so steep there are not one but two separate rappelling ropes strung up from the tree trunks above to assist with your ascent. This hole deserves its own Wikipedia page, but I won’t waste more words on it because from yet another raised tee pad above its basket the main event starts.
This is the Top of the Old World. The intended signature piece as stated by the owner and the designer alike. This is where you’ll empty your bag and post videos in group chats with Peter from Podunk, Michigan, Juuso from Jyväskylä, or Fredrik from Finspång.
Through the frame of a picture window formed by a couple massive trees, their thick ceiling, and a bannister that prevents players from falling off the box, you can spot the hint of a hanging basket obscured by the haze of humid heat. It is a calm day and I unsheathe my Star Wombat 3 from its exalted seat in the middle of the front bag compartment. For someone of my short stature, it takes complete commitment to fire a low enough line because I’m forced to play chicken with the safety bannister. I set my wrist angle to about five degrees of hyzer tilt and snap off a full power straight shot that nearly grazes the bannister, slowly fades to the left away from the target, and, about 90 meters into its steeply downward trajectory, flips over to the right and checks up at 120 meters, four short of the pinless basket dangling from the vast bower above. Lining the entire fairway to the right is an out of bounds fence, and this is the only flippy mid range shot I will make that fails to find it.
Next up is a shorter flat ground hole that requires a forehand flex shot to navigate a tight and twisting corridor. I’ve yet to see someone master it.
From there we traverse another crossing fairway to the last of the most notable holes on the course in number 11. This is again flat for a hundred meters across a marsh or a pond depending on the water level. The green is lined by OB short, long, and left with a right side bailout island should you opt for the par play. I do not. Failing to sit the drive safely inbounds triggers a cascade of drop zones in the form the blue and red tees. I put both my tournament drives safely into the green and clank the R1 putt into the cage while smashing the R2 one into the chains.
After this, the excitement calms down a bit. Holes 12 and 13 are still quite fun for my noodle arm and there is even a tiny swimming pool with a small snack hut in the middle of the fairway of 13 that provides for a mid round refreshment from the sweltering heat and the punishing climbs.
Hole 16 is the standout on this final stretch. Unless your forehand is elite, it requires an uphill anhyzer through a window and under a low ceiling while still demanding enough height to clear a late ledge into the green. The ledge wall developed a precise pock mark from my consistent low miss until during the final tournament round I manage to clear it by a donkey hair and slide the disc well into circle one.
Hole 15 asks one thing and one thing only, and if you do not possess that specific skill and perform it on demand, you are going home in a bogey bag. My best miss finds me pin high in the left side out of bounds encroaching on the plot of a little old lady in a bucket hat tending to her vegetable garden.
Hole 18 concludes the round with a mid or putter chipper, but since European champion Dennis Augustsson broke the hole early on with an ace, they have installed a triple mando on the edge of circle two. These sorts of gimmicky gimme holes do have a place on tour level courses, but the rule of thumb should be to limit them to one a pop, and with a more compelling example already implemented by way of hole three, that limit has been tapped out.
León turfs a forehand chip into the ground just short of the mando, only to carve a lofty anhyzer putt from the edge of circle two into the chains for a birdie and a -4 performance. I tap in for a +4. Those scores track pretty well with our respective player ratings.
To the right of the elevated 18th basket lies a small pony paddock. Down the hill to the left you will find a separate family friendly course under construction. For the vacationing visitor, this is the time where you would grab your towel from your rental car and walk back down the hill to the fairway of hole 13 to spend the rest of the day poolside with a Caipirinha in hand. Or, once future development plans come to pass, drop by the fifteen room hotel being constructed inside the property to fetch your rubber duck on the way to said pool.
I, on the other hand, drop my new European Birdies bag that I bought at the current clubhouse off at my room in Circle 3. I then draw myself a Sagrés from the tap on the patio and head over the handrail on the edge of the platform on top of the future clubhouse currently under construction. Once there I lean over the rail and take it all in.
The view is breathtaking. The round was great. And the property is bound to up the ante for the emerging market of destination disc golf tourism.
Alvaiázere Vibes
The days move at a slovenly pace. Morning, noon, and night, Amaral and his brother Luis Carvalho take us down the hill to the village in various cars at varying multiples of the speed limit for meals. The traffic light by the volunteer fire house is the only one in town and all the colors mean the same: go!
The Alvaiázere Open is scheduled in conjunction with FAFIPA 2025, a Portuguese take on Coachella where entrance is free, the influencers have been replaced with farmers, and instead of an overpriced Nobu pop-up branch, there is kebab and chocolate shots. We have a booth at the fair with a big screen TV and a putting basket. The Sagrés flows and Amaral sinks successive knee putts while Aurea (think Madonna sans the international fame) belts out pop music bruisers in the background.
Portuguese hospitality is beyond reproach. In fact, it can be almost oppressive. But once I accept that the check is not my problem, my worries disintegrate like the ample amounts of alcohol coalescing with my bloodstream. A second Super Bock, a third, and a fourth will always materialize long before my lips start to yearn them, and a meal never fails to fall out of the ether whenever my little tummy starts humming.
Such is the way of Alvaiázere.
Among the tractor displays of the FAFIPA 2025 farmers festival. Under the spell of Tony Carreira’s crooning charm emanating from the giant festival stage. Or while marveling at the bizarre religious/regional accouterments of the Thursday night parade, you will always find yourself enveloped in the warm welcome of the Portuguese people, and within minutes it will start to feel like your second home. And if you’re a disc golfer with both a budget and insatiable wanderlust, it soon may become just that.
The 411
Valle D’Encanto is located just about halfway in between Lisboa and Porto. The recommend is to fly into one and out of the other, but if you can choose only one, a weekend in Porto is your best bet. The scenery is breathtaking. Nazaré, the world’s biggest surf break, is an hour away by car.
The course is part of an eco-tourism complex with many other sports and attractions under development: fun for the whole family.
