When staying here we usually walk down into Sao Vicente at least once a week, and over time have explored new routes down into the village. The most obvious route is by road, the way that you drive from the roundabout, but there is occasional traffic and it is tarmac all the way. The route we have walked most often is one I have described before, turning to walk past Quinta Barbusano and the Capela on a quieter track before reaching the previously mentioned roundabout and completing the walk on the road.
Today, however, we have found a new route which follows the Levada dos Cardais. From the house we take the road down as usual and turn right at Estrada Agricola da Vista de Nossa Senhora towards Quinta Barbusano. We follow the road past the entrance and also past the Capelinha de Nossa Senhora de Fatima, continuing around the bend in the road until we reach the first house. A right turn takes us onto the levada path which runs for almost two kilometres behind the Capela and along the valley towards Sao Vicente. The path takes us through woodland and vineyards giving views of the valley from a completely different perspective and terminates at a 'miradoura', a viewing platform giving views of the mouth of the valley and sea cliffs towards Porto Moniz.
This is the end of the path and to complete the walk to the seafront we had to backtrack about 200 metres until we saw a staircase leading down. 170 steps take us through agricultural land to the road where we turn right and continue on tarmac. At a junction we turn right to reach another viewpoint overlooking the village and sea.
It takes us a little while to find the way down as the staircase, a set of almost 300 stone steps, are set back from the viewpoint next to the house. The steps take us all the way down to the road where we take the path leading right, behind the white house. This path can then be followed all the way down to the sea, hugging the mountainside and weaving its way down between that and the river, between tall reeds and Aloe, across the road and through a couple of hand carved tunnels in the rock emerging at the right of the blue bridge on the seafront.
This was a much nicer route than walking all the way on tarmac and through a bit of research we have found that the trail also continues from our starting point in the opposite direction starting at Terra do Galo, 2.5km further up the valley, although on inspection, the path beside the levada did not appear to have been developed and was very overgrown.
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