Muge - Santarém

Leaving from the Parish Council, we turn left to Rua Almirante Reis, accompanying the building of Casa Cadaval. We have the Roman bridge in front of us, but we don’t cross it, continuing instead to the right under the viaduct of the N114 national road, until we find another bridge over which we cross the Muge stream.

Archaeological sites with large accumulations of shells, animal remains and hundreds of human skeletons of a species not yet fully identified, which have lived here for about 5 thousand years, the Concheiros de Muge, were discovered along this stream. These are the most famous and rich places of Portuguese prehistory. At the Concheiro da Moita do Sebastião, for example, we can find traces of circular huts of logs and clay, silos on the ground to preserve food, and graves ritualized with ochre and stones under their heads. Through a path of fine sand, first, and then through a narrow rural road, we advance through the immense cultivated or fallow areas that lead to Benfica do Ribatejo. Nearby, the vineyard becomes predominant, in a region whose wines have been increasingly recognized and the main wineries (to visit!) already assume high levels of production and quality. We enter Rua Direita towards the village center, former land of fishermen, now "just" of "campinos" (bull herdsmen), full of courage and dressed up, with the red hat, while dancing the Ribatejo fandango. We leave the village also through Rua Direita again. At the crossroad to Cortiçóis we turn left and continue along the Vala de Alpiarça. We pass under the motorway viaduct and turn left again to cross Quinta do Casal Monteiro. We take the opportunity to have lunch and enjoy a degustation of the region's wines with an appropriate setting. After 3.5 km, we enter the village of Tapada. By asphalt, we follow and climb a path to meet the N114 again. We now cross the Ponte D. Luís over the Tejo, which in 1881 was the third largest bridge in Europe. On the opposite bank, on the right, we head to Santarém stream, to avoid walking up to the city now, which we'll try to visit later. We enter this old port of fluvial commerce following the road N365 sidewalk, crossing the railway line and finishing the stage in the local Parish Council, which is eager to welcome us. Behind us, we leave Igreja de Santa Cruz, a beautiful Gothic church from the mid-19th century, that used to serve the local population, which grew a lot between 1218 and 1260. At that time, the bustling village was a building site to support the construction of large monasteries in the region.