Teetering around the craggy hill of Tôr 

Unfortunately, David had to back down as leader due to Dinah contracting Covid so with no one offering, I decided to step up and offer to lead. Having no time to recce, I decided to walk one of my regular routes and knew that the river crossing would have dried up and easy to cross.

We met at the Cafe Mai 1^st  located in the small hamlet of Funchais in Tor Freguesia.

I believe a few others who would have joined us but had several domestic duties on that day. One had the Mosquito net man making a visit, another had the locksmith man to the house, moving house for another two and, of course a few others were away so ........

Sue M and me, Jan.

We began our walk traipsing through the hamlet of Funchais following the lane of Beco das Nespereiras.

Which way? Beco das Nespereiras.

 We made our way through the back paths of 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. In the past, the route took us onto tarmac which met the Loulé-Salir road however I decided to find an off-tarmac route and asked Sue if she minded if we recce’d a way which I had done a few years back on other walks.

We entered into a field which had a faint tractor path and from memory this was the path that I was looking for. Not sure if Sue approved. There was an abundance of prickly yellow plants quite unsuitable for shorts!!!

This finally petered out and we found ourselves on a beautiful, shady path which led us onto a country tarmac road where we turned onto Rua Cementerio. We followed this narrow country road through interesting small hamlets.

This took us down onto a main road which we crossed and headed to the "Roman Bridge" here we crossed the Ribeira de Algibre. 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 river was very low which was very different from a few months ago which we failed to cross as it was too deep and fast flowing.

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.

We were now following the river, passing by more vineyards and a horse stable. Lots of ponies looking very happy with themselves enjoying their space in the fields

What’s going on here?

This led us to a crossroads. Normally, we would take a left here and start to climb towards Soalheira however I had to get my Cinderella back to her house in time to dress for a Jubilee picnic party that afternoon so here we went straight in order to reduce the length of the walk.

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

  

The other crossing I wanted seem to have disappeared so we turned back to the crossroads and took a left crossing over the dried river bed which we then headed up towards the main Tor/Boa Hora road. We crossed here and on towards the end of the walk. Around the corner and there was the cafe but alas it was closed.  So, Sue the oracle of all country cafe’s which serve a glass of wine for €1 to €1.50 glass of wine came up with the idea of driving a few minutes to the Cafe next to the Adega on the Loule road and here we settled down for our post-walk refreshments. And, yes here we paid €1.50!!!!

Thank you Sue making it such a lovely walk.

She did make it to the party!!!!!

Time taken.        A tad under 3 hours (no lunch stop).

Length of walk.  13.5 kms. A galloping speed of 4.5 kms per hour.