Tuesday 15th April 2025.
Tonight we are on a largish aire on the edge of the above village where GULP we are having to pay to stay, all of 7 euros, such a shock as it is the first time for 10 nights it’s cost us anything for accommodation.
This small village has had a copper mine that was mined on a small scale for centuries but in 1859 an English company took out a 50 year lease on it and began to mine commercially even building a railway line to the nearby river to ease the export of copper. The mine continued production until the end of WW1.
Now much of the open cast mining pits are flooded and provide leisure facilities.
We broke our journey today with a stop at Serpa.
As we turned off the main road to Serpa there was a market taking place in a field so of course we had to stop.
Serpa is famous for its creamy cheeses but sadly we didn’t see any.
Serpa is a peaceful agricultural hilltop town of lovely white houses huddled around an ancient castle.
Serpa is the centre of a district dedicated to choral singing and we have seen several of the sculptures like this one below.
The journey from Serpa to tonight’s stopover was the worst road we have driven since we commenced our journey, the surface was extremely poor and potholed, it wasn’t typical of our experiences on previous days. Also it began to rain heavily as we pulled up and that has continued on and off now for hours.
taraabit 