Fronteira - Cabeço de Vide

This is a stage we enjoy doing on hot days. A short and flat stage, through the new ecopath that replaced the deactivated railway line, which ends with the freshness of a dip in the river pool of Termas da Sulfúrea medicinal waters! Encouraged by this perspective, we go down the avenue of Heróis dos Atoleiros towards the old railway station.

On the way, we have the opportunity to visit the Centro de Interpretação da Batalha de Atoleiros (Atoleiros Battle Interpretation Center). In this museum, we discover the anonymous heroes of this battle, decisive in history. Through special technology, we feel at the centre of the battlefield and see the process of the famous "square tactic", an English-inspired military technique, which led the Portuguese army to victory. At the end of the avenue, we enter the ecopath, on the left, next to the old barrier station that used to close the Estrada de Santo Amaro road when the train was passing. We leave the city for the countryside and circulate quietly next to successive hills, as if by train. Between the olive trees, cereals and streams, the Path leads us to the bridge over the Ribeira Grande stream, from where we get good photographic perspectives of this green valley. Further away, on the horizon, the view reaches now our destination, the white houses of Cabeço de Vide. At kilometer 10 we detour from the ecopath to climb Rua da Associação until the entrance of Cabeço de Vide. After 200 metres, we reach a crossroad and we have the possibility to choose the road on the right, which the sign indicates the direction to Quinta do Cabeçote and also gives direct and faster access to the Termas da Sulfúrea thermal springs. If we are well supplied and determined to spend the night in the thermal baths, this can be an alternative to consider. In that farm, we can't miss the falconry demonstration, an ancient art that remains in some places of the Alentejo and Ribatejo. In the southwest, at the Barragem da Póvoa dam, we can also fish for plenty of barbels and largemouth basses with the farm’s fishing material. Otherwise, or if we prefer to discover the leafy village of Cabeço de Vide first, we go up Rua da Associação and, just after the Praça de Touros (Bullring), turn right until the wide Avenida da Libertação. Determined to explore all corners of the village, we go up the avenue until the Parish Council, about halfway, on the left side. Already with a full sackcloth and after walking all the alleys, we descend through Rua do Santo Mártir and then through a narrow rural alleyway to the site of the thermal baths. Before the day is over, we still bathe in these waters, unique in the country, a moment appreciated by that part of us that, literally, is closer to the Path!