The Craggy hill-walk of Tôr

On a coolish, 6 degree morning we 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 10.00 start.

From left to right:  Me (Jan), Roger, Julie, Sue and our photographer, Tony. No furry friends this week. Think Baxter is in retirement?

Due to one of our regular walkers having Christmas festivities in other parts, meant that we had a space in our bubble, so we were delighted that Roger could join us. So, the Five Go Adventuring around the craggy hills of Tor.

We began our walk traipsing through the hamlet of Funchais following the lane of Beco das Nespereiras. Where we came upon a delightful ‘village’. These pilgrims made their way to the manger to pay homage to the devine child. These included  a Moroccan ‘caravan’ and lots of individuals making their way to  the manager. 

After being amazed by the handiwork, we made our way through 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.                                                                                                                          

 

Were they on their way to Santiago de Compostela?

The Ribeira was quite full as we settled for a water break. My first worry of not being able to cross on our return journey but I did give a warning of this before we set out. But, I had a back-up plan.  

As we noticed, yet again another property in the Barrocal having been newly painted. A lockdown job, perhaps?

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). 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. This would have been the lunch stop but there was a bit of shade and a light breeze so we decided to march on up the hill to chase the sun. This was the beginning of our second climb heading in the direction of Soalheira.

 On our last walk here, Patrick showed us his house perched on a hill some distance away. We wondered if we      should change our route and head over there for a drink. But, this fell on deaf ears!!                                              

We soon found a sunny spot out of the wind and a few stones which afforded seats to stop for lunch.

We then turned westward and up another incline which turned into a hill. At the top, we followed a  a downward path. This led to the riverside path where we now turned east.

As we tramped along we came about some interesting natural stone sculptures.....

 

 Any suggestions from our readers of what they could be? We had plenty of skewed ideas!

 Eventually, we came to our turning point which led us down to a river crossing.         

Shall we ????

When we saw the depth of the river, we discussed the possibility of crossing. Throwing out ideas of how to cross;  the use of flip-flops, stripping off to wade across, finding pebbles in the shallower areas would give us a better footing but we all decided to wimp out and go back to the riverside path after the ‘children’ had a dambusting moment!! We didn’t fancy wading up to our thighs!!

As we turned back we saw some more artwork....

This was obviously going to add several more kilometres to the 17 planned and, as you see below, it certainly  did!! Having retraced the path we headed to the Loule/Tor road where we made a turn onto tarmac towards       Funchais.                                                                                                                                                                 

The pace increased as the front walkers realised they were on the last leg and and closing in on a well-deserved beer! So, with a last push, around the corner the Café came into sight. We all settled down for our post-walk refreshments.

Thank you to all of you in making it such a lovely walk. We take this opportunity from our "bubble" to wish you all a very, Happy New Year and hope we can get our bubbles together in 2021.

We did have post refreshments but forgot to take the evidence!!!!

Time taken.         5 hours including (15 minute lunch).

Length of walk.  22.33 kms.

Thank you to Tony for the images and Julie for the Wikiloc.

Wikiloc image provided by Julie.