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1.
Facing the park gates take the road out of town to the
left, the old Entroncamento road. Keeping to pavement on
the left hand side of the road, follow it up hill as it
bends round to the right. You pass two roads on the
right leading to a factory/warehousing complex which
should be ignored. Although this is on a main road, the
traffic is usually light and it offers interesting views
to the left, firstly of parts of Tomar and then more
rustic scenes.
It is worth detouring slightly at
the second of the “factory entrances” to see a beautiful
old spring containing two stone seats, Fonte dos
Namorados (Sweethearts’ Fountain), unfortunately partly
obscured and set in an incredibly ugly, huge concrete
wall. Why are these treasures not…er, treasured?
2.
Take the third road on the right (the first after the
two factory entrances) into a small housing estate and
immediately turn left. After 50 metres, take the small
gravel track uphill between two houses. This soon
reaches the walls of the Convento park. Follow the track
around to the left and keep the wall on your right. On
your left are small farms typical of the area, with
olive and fruit orchards.
3.
After 700 metres, the track meets a main road where you
continue to the right until seeing a road on the left,
Rua Casal dos Peixinhos (home of the small fish?).
Follow this road, which becomes a track, ignoring any
other tracks to the left and right. This track provides
your first glimpse of the aqueduct.
Here, a young mother carrying a
beautiful young baby left her house (and several noisy
dogs) to tell us that the track leads nowhere. On
showing her the map, she insisted that the track ended.
We thanked her but carried on anyway, trusting my map
reading skills.
4.
After 500 metres the track ends. But there were two
other tracks at the end, one in each direction. Take the
right track past a farm building on your right and look
for a small footpath leading off to the left. Follow
this path through the undergrowth for a couple of
hundred metres until it meets a major track, near the
aqueduct. Turn left.
5. Follow the track for about 150
metres where it forks. Take the left hand fork.
6. Do not deviate from this track for
one kilometre, where it turns sharply right between woodland on the
right and a meadow on the left. You meet a stream where
you turn right keeping the stream on your left. This
track is not very clear, but just keep the stream on you
left all the way, until you reach the aqueduct after
another kilometer. Here, a large buzzard took exception
to our presence and flapped away from a treetop crying
angrily.
You are now in the area proposed for
the golf course and it is easy to see why it has been
proposed, as you wander through pretty woods over gentle
slopes and clear meadows, ideal for fairways and greens. |
