Sintra: SNT PR8 - Vinho de Colares: Colares - Azenhas do Mar - Praia da Aguda - Fontanelas Loop

The official "PR8" route that takes its official name from passing some of the vineyards of Colares. They are quite unique in that the soil is practically sand. If that sort of thing interests you, I can highly recommend this walk. If it is not of interest, it there may be better walks to choose.

The walk starts of next to the communal winery in the town of Colares, the "Adega Regional de Colares", which is an interesting building in itself that is sometimes open to the public. The information board next to the building describing the route is completely unreadable, possibly by normal environmental decay or possibly a little light vandalism. This is the first hint that this route as it is described in official literature is very outdated with some paths and intersections not possible to walk at the time of me talking this walk (Nov 2021). But I guess that is why it might be good to follow a route such as this one instead.

The path goes up north past a lot of suburban dwellings in on the edge of the town. The first intersection described in the photos below is the first deviation from the official path. The path takes you through some woodland here as well, eventually leading out towards the sea. Note some of the vineyards along this stretch with their sandy top soil.

Azenhas do Mar is a spectacular little village on the cliff edge of the sea, but unfortunately the path towards this town is from east to west, avoiding the sudden spectacular scenery that you get when approaching the town along the coast from the south. If you have never seen this town, I recommend deviating a little so that you meet the coastline further south than the town itself, and then walking up towards it.

The path then leads north along the coast on a short and scenic stretch, but eventually turns inland again by Praia da Aguda. There is a bit of walking on paved roads in the town of Fontanelas. After this some fairly thick foliage in places.

These is a bridge marked in the photos about three quarters of the route through which looks a bit dangerous at the time of this walk. I crossed it, however, but beware that it feels a bit dodgy.

Then you can see on the path that it takes a route to the east and then backtracks - this is the result of buildings appearing that makes the traditional route impossible to follow. So you can just ignore this little loop, but I kept it in the path just because there is an interesting round chapel ("Capela circular") that might be worth a look.

After this little deviation the rest of the walk is woodlands interspersed with some nice looking dwellings and some of the aforementioned vineyards.

In conclusion, the route itself is quite long but has no difficult parts at all so can only be described as "easy".