Caldeirão Mountain Range

The lovely Caldeirão Mountain is situated in the border with the Algarve and the Alentejo regions, and it is a low altitude mountain with its peak at 580 meters in Alentejo.

The mountain presents astonishing landscapes, presenting as well a wonderful natural, human and architectonic heritage, housing a large number of diversified species of fauna and flora.

The climatic influence of this mountain is quite important, as it constitutes a barrier for the northern cold winds, contributing therefore for the famous nice weather of the Algarve.

The weather therefore influences the vegetation, that is distinguished in the westernmost regions for the predominance of cork, oak and strawberry trees; on the proximities of the astonishing Guadiana Valley predominates cork and holm-oak trees.
Throughout the centuries the landscape as been changed, passing from natural woods to the agricultural and cattle breed exploitation.

The Fauna of the Mountain has also been quite altered with the passage of time, and nowadays is hard to find species that once inhabited here, such as the lynx, the Iberian wolf, the otter or the Iberian Imperial Eagle, as well as other species such as the deer, the boar, the rabbit, the Eurasian Eagle Owl or the Bonelli's Eagle.

The human occupancy in this mountain dates back to ancient times, namely to the Neolithic Period, existing in the area several pre-historic and megalithic vestiges. The Moorish occupancy also left strong influences in this southern territory, changing the landscape and lifestyle with the introduction of new agricultural goods, such as the orange tree or the lovely almond tree that provides astonishing panoramas when it blossoms.

The typical houses of the Caldeirão Mountain are built in stone blocks, painted in white with cane. Throughout the territory can be found several rural heritage goods of other times, like water mills, dams, windmills, barns, among other symbols of a rural lifestyle with ancestral origins.