Castro Marim council is undertaking two projects to create cycling routes in order to connect to the village of Altura and to Vila Real de Santo António.
The creation of the new bike lanes is part of the council’s desire to increase the area’s appeal to those less interested in sun and sand holidays and more interested in healthy outdoor pursuits, the fabled ‘nature tourism’ market.
The first new bike route section is a bracing three kilometre stretch encopassing Vila Real de Santo António, Monte Gordo and Castro Marim, much of it across the marshland reserve.
The second section is an enervating five kilometres alongside the road which is being repaired, widened and resurfaced.
"Much of our tourism is for those that enjoy outdoor activities such as cycling, so we have to take advantage of our resources, in this case the Reserva Natural do Sapal," said the mayor of Castro Marim, Francisco Amaral.
Besides these two bike paths, others are planned to link the town of Castro Marim to the Sapal Nature Reserve, Monte Francisco and Junqueira.
Meanwhile the pan-Algarvian ecovia cycle experience remains a patchy, vandalised and discredited tourist offering displaying all the hallmarks of councils and a government that witter on about nature tourism but do as close to zero as possible.