A nice stroll to Estombar 

Spring! ...

... and the only 'riot' this week was that of flowers, blooming furiously after the sun-and-rain treatment of the last few weeks.

Yves, Frank, Martin and Rafa, David, Karen, Sue, Jan, Marian

We gathered outside Silves' finest restaurant, for a prompt start at 10am. 

However, we were all far too busy at 10 a.m., so we made a start at about 10 past, and sprinted northwards, heading in entirely the wrong direction for our intended destination of the 'Parque Municipal do Sitio das Fontes' in Estombar:

It was difficult to keep up, but Martin had a dog and a holy sprinter to help

Crossing the Ponte Romana (which isn't really a Roman Bridge, you know), we finally turned in the required direction and proceeded past the two concrete hovels, with a sad-looking dog and three happy-looking puppies amongst the rubbish. 

After that we passed the splendidly-named 'Kill-the-Moors Farm', which I gather does wine tasting sessions for those who are not (for some mysterious reason) satisfied with a box of red from Lidl:

... past a 'stairway to heaven' (which we eschewed, not needing one at present):

and commenced our walk by the bonnie, bonnie banks o' the Rio Arade:

Turned out nice again

... passing through the fast-expanding 'Arvad' vineyard, which I gather does wine tasting sessions for those who are not (for some mysterious reason) satisfied with a box of white from Aldi:

.... down a bit where the proper path had been blocked off, but allowed us to enjoy more flowers (these were ... yellow ones)

but there were also, um, red ones (did I mention I'm not an expert on flowers?)

We went on a little tour of the flat lands beside the river, where we saw a lot of majestic storks, a egret, an heron or two, (but it might have been the same one twice), and a flock of little brown birds (did I mention I'm not an expert on birds?)

So anyway, we presently achieved our objective of reaching the aforementioned Parque Municipal etc., but a bit too early for lunch!

Not sure what was going on here, but there were a lot of schoolchildren about, and a wicked-looking grandmother

So I arbitrarily decided that it would fill the spare time splendidly if we went to look at some nice mud:

Glorious

... and we then returned to the picnic spot, but didn't allow Frank or Marian to sit anywhere near us, just in case:

We then returned via a carefully-chosen short-cut, up the only hill of note on the entire route:

... and, as I had predicted, were assaulted by a ravenous horde of loose canines:

Frank showed them dogs he was not to be trifled with

...  then retraced our steps, passing an expensive-looking mindfulwellbeingness resort called 'Pura Vida' (which we eschewed, not really fancying one at the moment), past the hovels (by now with a person in 'residence'), over the fake Ponte Romana again, and back to a welcome beverage at the second-finest restaurant in Silves, near a convenient playground.

Route and Stats:

Terry Mace

Thanks to all, and to Yves for the best photos. You can tell which ones he took 😒