Visentine Natural Park - Coastal Trail

The Rota Vicentina is a long-distance walking trail, with several small loops, which opened in 2013 and was created to encourage low impact tourism in an area of Portugal that is relatively untouched. The trail connects Portugal’s most south-westerly point, Cape St. Vincent to the village of Odeceixe, where it splits into 2 trails. One is called the Fisherman’s Trail which hugs the coast and continues north and the other one is called the Historical Way which heads inland.

This area which visitors rarely visit is lovely - full of beaches, dramatic cliffs and small authentic fishing villages. This region south of Lisbon, covers a third of Portugal’s land mass but only 4% of its population lives here.

Donna has moved on to Tavira where she is enjoying telling tales with Irish travellers and drinking red wine. Haha. So, we temporarily lost our travelling partner but were happy to do a little more exploring of this area on our own.

Our plan was to drive up the southwestern coast towards Lisbon and then get out of the car and walk parts of the Fisherman’s Trail starting in the town of Odeceixe.

Odeceixe is a small village with a huge beach about 3 km away, in a cove sheltered by high cliffs. This is an area that surfers frequent, even in cold weather. We didn’t go swimming but we did walk up into the cliffs for the wonderful views. There were a few R.V.s parked in the parking lots, probably home for the surfers. We imagine that in the summer time this beach would be full and the little village restaurants hopping.

We got back into the car and drove through pastures and vegetable gardens. There seem to be many small rivers, creeks and wetlands here. There are few trees but a lot of bramble bushes. I am sure that birds would love living in this area.

As we continued south, pine and eucalyptus trees seem to dominate the hills.

Before we got to Rogil, we saw a big old-fashioned windmill on top of a hill. The windmill, when open, shows the traditional process of milling cereals, and there are explanations regarding the techniques and machines used for that purpose. We were there on a Sunday and the windmill was closed. The views from the mill were beautiful.

On we went to Aljezur, where the ruins of an amazing hilltop castle were situated. Aljezur is a small market town of small white houses and cobbled streets about 30 km north of Lagos. The town is on both sides of a fertile river valley, famed for its sweet potatoes.

Overlooking the tiny town are the ruins of a 10th century Moorish castle which sits at the top of a narrow and very steep, rocky hill. The gate was open and entry was free so we walked in. The views were spectacular. On one side of the river, we could see the old town, which dates back to the time of the castle. In 1246, Christian armies conquered the town. Five hundred years later, the Bishop of the Algarve ordered the town’s inhabitants to move to the other side of the river to escape the malaria that was spreading in the village. That area was the new town. A lot of people didn’t want to move so the town has two halves.

We could see a big beach in the distance so we drove 10 km on a small road to see it, Praia de Monte Clérigo. The countryside is wonderful and of course we saw many spectacular views of the Western Atlantic coast as we got closer to the beach. Already, the roadsides and the clifftops have lots of colourful small flowers and many of the trees and the grass are a bright green. In the Spring, it must be really is quite a sight to see.

We continued driving though the park back to Lagos. Tomorrow, we leave to Faro. Away from the countryside and into the city.Read more