
Walk No 5 - Pretty River, Pretty Village, Pretty Good
	Leaving from the centre of Tomar, this walk follows the *Rio Nabão* (River Nabão) north to the pretty village of Pedreira, returning through eucalyptus forests. This is quite a long walk so you may wish to take a snack with you and there is a picnic stop alongside the river on the way. Location: Tomar, central Portugal Distance: 14 kilometres Time: 5 hours Map: Carta Militar Numero 320
Start - Park in the centre of Tomar and go to sports pavilion and football pitch. 1. Leave the main entrance to the sports pavilion and head north, keeping the cafe/pizzeria to your left. Follow this road for 600 metres until it passes a disused mill alongside a canal to your left. Turn left over a small footbridge across the canal. The factory is marked on the map as a fabrica de fiação, a spinning mill, but quite what they spun, I don’t know. It was along this short stretch of canal that we saw an iridescent flash of blue as a kingfisher darted low across the water. 2. Cross the bridge and turn right along a track with houses and vegetable gardens to your left. This track soon becomes a path and goes into more dense woodland between the canal to your right and the Rio Nabão to your left. After one kilometre, the path turns sharp right and continues until you reach a weir after a further couple of hundred metres. It is worth stopping here and exploring for a while. There is an observation hut above the weir which gives superb views of the water tumbling over the weir and the surrounding countryside. 3. Cross the canal over the sluice gate and turn immediately left along a path with the Rio Nabão to your left. Follow this path for one kilometre until you meet a wide track where you turn left. Along this track is an abundance of spring flowers including bluebells, celandine, iris, wild orchids and anemones. 4. Follow the wide track where it turns let over an attractive rustic bridge lined with upright stones. After three hundred metres you pass under the IC9 trunk road. Whilst not pretty, the motorway is an impressive feat of engineering as the traffic rumples 30 or 40 metres over your head. Just after the IC9 the view is improved as you look left to see the attractive Quinta da Granja on the opposite bank of the river. 5. Follow the track alongside the river for 600 metres until you pass some ruined houses and where the path turns sharp right and climbs shortly but steeply. Again, it is worth stopping to look around the ruined houses to see a typical rural homestead which seems to have been hastily abandoned, and wondering how the inhabitants scraped a living in such a location.


Nabão Weir	Nabão Weir			Oak Woods
6. The path becomes a track and meanders on through oak woods for one kilometre until you see an almost-hidden ruin on your left alongside a turning. Turn left along this track as it drops down through olive groves towards a village (Prado) and the river. Here, we saw a beautiful Spanish festoon butterfly, fluttering by. 7. When you come to a T junction turn right towards the main road and cross the bridge on your left by a large paper factory, fabrica de papel. Just before the bridge there are some small but impressive limestone escarpments on your right. 8. After crossing the bridge, follow the road as it bends left then turn right past a café on your left. After 300 metres, there is a track forking off to the right which leads to the picnic site. Note that the picnic tables had been removed on our visit in March 2011 but should soon be replaced in time for the warmer weather. Here you will also find a shallow paddling pool and access to the river for swimming.

Spanish Festoon Butterfly	Miradoura (Viewing Point)			Rock Fences
9. If you have been to the picnic site, return to the fork and turn right along the main road or, if no picnic is on your itinerary, continue up the main road. After 200 metres, you reach the village of Pedreira. Pedreira is the tidiest and most interesting village we have encountered on our walks. There are statues, interesting little streets (many beautifully name-plated), arched alleyways, tiny well kept houses and a neat little park at its centre. It is also worth following the signs for the Miradoura which lead you to a wonderful viewpoint with spectacular views over the Nabão valley and surrounding hills. The village also contains an impressive church and I would urge everyone to stop here for a while and enjoy the idyllic village atmosphere. 10. Just below the church on the right as you look downhill is the Rua Antonio Da Silva Cardoso. Turn down this road and follow it out of the village. Here you meet a main road where you turn right and then second left for a track alongside a cream/yellow house. 11. Follow this track through eucalyptus a forest for two kilometres, ignoring any turnings until you meet a junction of tracks where you turn left then immediately right, climbing steeply uphill to meet a main road. Here you turn left through the hamlet of Casal da Azinheira. 12. This road leads you back into Tomar after about two kilometres. This is not the prettiest part of the route but you can console yourself with the fact that it is literally all downhill from here. 13.On reaching a T junction, turn right to reach Tomar and back to your starting point.

Small Doorway		Pedreira	Pedreira Church

Useful Information

Walking in Portugal