Week 17 - Somewhere new? In Portugal??

We are moving again to a site, in a town, we have never visited before - Camping Castro Verde. It is a municipal site close to the centre of the small town of Castro Verde.

There are two distinct areas to the site. On the right as you enter is a large paved area divided into small, and I do mean small, pitches. If you spread your arms and touch one unit you can almost, and is some cases easily touch the unit next door and the one behind you.

Not for us, thank you. We elected to go into the “grassed” area where we discovered that not a single pitch was in use the five units using the area were all set up on the access roads so that’s where we went. Interestingly a newcomer asked the receptionist about setting up on the road and was told it was strictly forbidden, however when he asked the same question of one of the grounds persons he was told it was no problem and to set up wherever he fancied.

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Igreja da Conceicao (Church of the Conception)

Being a new area we were looking forward to exploring and started with a walk into Castro Verde town centre, in particular the Igreja da Conceicao (Church of the Conception) which is famed for the blue picture tiles it contains - stunning.

Alongside the church is a building site where no one was working except a solitary woman with a paint brush and tiny trowel working to uncover what appeared to be a bone. We discovered later that a contract to build a museum car park, museum and other ancillary buildings had been awarded and was underway when an ancient burial ground had been discovered in the centre of the site. All work has been suspended, possibly permanently, while the archaeologists carry out an extensive excavation.

A short car drive away, on the outskirts of Mértola, is a very pretty riverside picnic area complete with old, long abandoned, water mill. It was easy to see why this area is so popular in the warmer weather, even while we were (mid winter) there we were by no means alone.

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Riverside picnic area near Mértola

Our other trip out was also to a riverside, this time to see the Pulo do Lobo (Wolf Leap) waterfall. Following the directions in the guide book we finished on a path high above the river with a very disappointing “ripple” in the distance. Surely that couldn’t be a waterfall? Scouting about we followed a track down a steep slop that eventually led to the waterfall we had been seeking. It was quite impressive when we saw it in; flood it would have been spectacular.

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Pulo do Lobo (Wolf Leap) waterfall


© S W Ghost 2018