S. Miguel de Machede - Evoramonte

We bypass Praça da República square on the right, going down to the cobbled lane of Rua dos Castelos. After walking over the dry stream, we access a vacant field and, ahead, we have the national road N254 on an elevated platform, which we have to pass through a low tunnel that forces us to bend our back. Already on the other side, we continue through the midst of sheep flocks surprised to see us there. We open and close successive braided wire gates, walking 2 km through the middle of the cork and holm oak forest until a vast water plan opens in front of us. Not one but two, because we also find another small dam on the right . We turn left and we follow the larger dam bank until Courelas da Toura, with lots of shade and fresh air. We cross beautiful vineyards and cultivated fields until we see the asphalt again, confluent on one side with the Paço da Quinta and on the right with the hermitage of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, surrounded by homemade vegetable gardens, with an unusual wayside cross on a whitewashed pedestal, closer to the road. Until Azaruja we'll walk another 4.5 km, first on the road to the sign that indicates Monte Branco on the right. Then, by the dirt road that conducts us through successive small agricultural properties (courelas), until another asphalted street, that leads us to the entrance of Azaruja by Rua das Courelas, ending near the Praça de Touros (Bullring). 400 m to the left is the Palácio dos Condes da Azarujinha, an imposing palace of neoclassical architecture, which is not open to visitors. We walk up to Largo da Igreja square and from there, on a wide macadam road, we follow the indications to the hermitage of Nossa Senhora do Carmo, on the left. Before the hermitage, we turn right through a gate and proceed inside the cork and holm oak forest, ever more dense for 6 km without seeing a soul. After some gates and some dry streams, the landscape opens and we cross through the middle of chickens and sheep, in a small degraded hill, guarded by some fiercer and, fortunately, trapped dogs... The environment is still rural, along a narrow paved road that ends up intersecting the national road N18, at the entrance of Evoramonte, next to the gas station.