Camino Português from Tavira

[Margaret Butterworth]

I am currently visiting Tavira in SE Portugal I’ve discovered a Santiago Church here which is the starting point of a longer Camino through Portugal. There are even some yellow arrows!

 

[Donaldclive]

Thank you so much for this, Margaret; I am hoping to do it in 2020. I have done the Via de la Plata from Seville (with a section through the Minho) in 2017, most of the Sureste from Alicante in 2019 and want to do a long walk from the South of Portugal to SdC to improve my very bad Portuguese.

 

[Margaret Butterworth]

I’m not sure how much infrastructure there is for the route. I just saw the information in the window of a house opposite the Church. I am just here as a tourist enjoying the lovely weather!

 

[Friend from Barquinha]

Ah, this must be the route for which we saw the Caminho signs last fall in Vale de Peso, partway between Crato and Nisa. The area is beautiful, but very empty--rolling plains--between the small towns. The N245 and N18 that they list as the route are fairly quiet side roads. Remember that anything over the size of a farm track in Portugal tends to get a "highway" designation.

This part of the Alentejo was the northern edge of Julius Caesar's Iberian wheatfields! Beautiful country. We have driven this area in the spring, and the hills are covered with yellow lupins.

We were there just about exactly a year ago (last October), and the weather was still shorts and shirtsleeves. The locals are welcoming. The local governments have just woken up to the potential of some tourist revenue from the Caminho, so there are plenty of local initiatives to improve the route!

Flor de Rosa, on the north outskirts of Crato going out of town, has a beautifully restored old castle, partly museum and partly high-class posada https://portugalvirtual.pt/pousadas/crato/index.html. Worth seeing!

 

[peregrina2000]

I saw the same thing, but I think you are right to assume that the infrastructure and the markings are just not ready for prime time.

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/more-caminhos-coming-to-portugal.53403/

I think that it would be doable with a GPS, but I imagine most of the way would be alongside country roads. I could be wrong about that, but I haven’t seen any indication that there has been an effort to mark an off-road trail.

 

[kenwilltravel]

My wife and I actually walked a little stretch of this last year. We were staying in Tavira in late Sept./early October after doing the Portuguese Coastal and visited this church that Margaret mentions. There, we learned to our great surprise, that you could actually do a Camino from the Algarve all the way up to Santiago. So, just for fun, we did part of the walk in the direction of the Spanish border: Tavira-Cabanas-Praia de Cacela Velha-Vila Nova de Cacela. We found this to be a very scenic walk through countryside and along seashore. Praia de Cacela Velha is particularly pretty. We didn't go past Vila Nova de Cacela because we ascertained that the stretch from there to Vila Real de Santo Antonio mostly involved walking along the N125 highway. Not our cup of tea. So we took the train back to Tavira from Vila Nova de Cacela. But it was a fun way to explore part of the Tavira region on foot.

 

[auburnfive]

When I was in Tavira 2 years ago, I noticed the same sign and sent an email. Ended up meeting with the fellow who was was organizing a walk of the first stage a few days later which I eagerly agreed to come along for. He sold a credential which got stamped in a few places on that day. The route is in the initial stages, accommodation is quite sparse in places. He was very knowledgeable about local history, culture and plant life. I mentioned this forum, for some reason he said he wanted nothing to do with it.