The high, craggy hill-walk of Tôr

On a coolish, 23 degrees morning the following EAWW met at the Cafe Mai 1^st  located in the small hamlet of Funchais (Tor Freguesia). I am not sure if the Cafe's name is derived from when the Cafe opened or from being the "people's" cafe representing International Workers' Day.  It was a 09.30 start. . .  So off we went.

The Photograper, I think, was shorter than the Leader.

From left to right:   Rachel, Alan, Patrick, Jan (Me), Miriam, Roger, Kim and the lovely four-legged Bica.

We began our walk traipsing through the hamlet of Funchais following the lane of Beco das Nespereiras  and onto the Travessa do Alecrim where we started the first climb out of the hamlet, passing some individual dwellings. 

We then left civilisation and continued our craggy, rocky hill climb toward the summit (whence the name Tôr is derived), whilst keeping parallel with the Ribeira de Algibre-Tôr road. 

In the distance, on the opposite hill, the small hamlets of Boa Hora and Parragil were clearly visible. We eventually came to the top of our climb and, after a breather, we traversed for a couple of kilometres before beginning our descent to the top end of the village of Tôr. Hitting the Loulé-Salir road, we made our way on tarmac for about 500 metres then turned into Rua Andrezes and followed a beautiful, shady path which led us onto a country tarmac road where we turned onto Rua Cementerio.

This took us down onto a main road which we crossed and headed to the "Roman Bridge" here we crossed the Ribeira de Algibre. From the bridge you can see below a stone ford which is most probably the Roman crossing, according to Loulé Museum. The bridge itself is hardly Roman (despite its epithet!) as it was not completed until the Moorish occupancy of Lusitania; although it does form a part of the Roman road which was later to be used as one of the Caminhos de Santiago.

The Ribeira had very little water since my recce a couple of weeks earlier. And is Roger looking to rescue yet another dog??

We admired our own Banksy of Satori's artwork on the gable end of a cottage (Satori is a Salir-based arts and entertainment society). Photo.  It clearly shows a basket of Barrocal country foods of grapes, medronho, nuts, olives, grains, etc. clutched in a hand.

We were now about halfway through our outing and crossed over to the other side of the valley. The tarmac road led us up to our turning at the Quinta da Tôr vineyards.

Quinta da Tôr has 47 hectares and produces 100,000 bottles a year from seven different grape varieties, such as, Touriga and Syrah. The adega offers several types of tastings along with tapas. Be AWARE their wines’ alcohol content reaches 17% - just one percent less than Sherry! I was thinking of suggesting a wine tasting but, on second thoughts, managing six other walkers after a tipple of 17% was best  avoided!!!

We were now following the river, passing by more vineyards and some horse stables, which led us to a crossroads. Here we took the benefit of this perfect shady spot for our lunch stop.

Penny for your thoughts Patrick? 

Once watered, fed and rested, we began our second climb towards Soalheira.

Here, Patrick showed us his house perched on a hill some distance away. We suggested  that we could change our route and head over there for a drink. But, this fell on deaf ears!!

We then turned westward and up another slight incline until, at the top, guess what. . . a downward path. This led to the riverside path where we now turned east. We took several opportunities to stop for shade along the path. In doing so, we had some interesting chats, such as, metal hips, underwired bras, the need for haircuts, picking up the wrong suitcase at airport terminals, and missing flights. Does this suggest that our AWW group has an older demographic? But, I will leave it up to the reader to make any relevant comments on this! Eventually, we came to our turning point which led us down to a river crossing.

A pebble crossing took us over the riverbed which had dried up since my recce only two weeks earlier. But, Bica did find some water further up the river which gave her some pleasure in padding and to cool her paws.

After the crossing we headed up the path which eventually led us to the main Ribeira de Algibre-Funchais road. The pace increased as the front walkers realised they were only a few metres from a well-deserved beer! So, with a last push, around the corner the Café came into sight. We all settled down (social distancing, of course) for our post-walk refreshments. The temperature was perfect, sunny with a cool breeze.

Thank you to all of you in making it such a lovely walk.

We are sure that the WAWW had an enjoyable walk with leader, Jim.

Time taken.         4.5 hours including (20 minute lunch).

Length of walk.  17 kms

Route.                 No imagery. Problem with downloading from my phone.